The Emperor Has No Clothes

This saying is based on the 1837 Hans Christian Andersen short tale.  As the tale goes, a “vain Emperor who cares for nothing but his appearance and attire hires two tailors who are really swindlers that promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "just hopelessly stupid". The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects, who play along with the pretense. Suddenly, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others.”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor’s _New_Clothes)

Today, I fear many Christians are walking around like the emperor, in respect the armor of God.  Walking around naked, without the benefit of God’s armor.  I fear it is a common belief that once a person identifies as “Christian”, they are fully armed.  I will go as far as to venture that many “born again” Christians consider themselves fully armed, by virtue of their “born again” status.  This is not Biblically supported. 

Paul, in his letter to the church at Ephesus, addresses them as “the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus”.  Paul told them that they were “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”  There were “adopted by God as sons through Jesus Christ.”  They were “accepted in the Beloved.”  They had “redemption through His (Jesus’) blood, the forgiveness of sins".  In fact, Paul, sitting in prison in Rome over three hundred miles from Ephesus, had heard of their faith.  How many of us can have this said about us?

Yet Paul explicitly tells these saints to “put on the whole armor of God”.  If it was automatic by virtue of their standing with Christ, they would not have to “put on the whole armor of God”.  It was not automatic by virtue of the fact that they were “blessed us with every spiritual blessing”.   They were adopted and accepted by God.  They were redeemed through the blood of Jesus.

BUT,

They were as naked as the emperor in respect to “the armor of God”

We have a choice to, arm ourselves with the armor of God or, walk around naked, assuming we are armed by virtue of our right standing with the Father.

Pretending does not make it so!