Bullet proof vest.

Romans 13:14
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Is it to be assumed that though Jesus Christ Himself exclaimed on the cross of Calvary, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), there is still work for us to do? I hear a lot of people talk about the Christian life this way. I wonder to myself, where is the rest? Christ came to remove our burdens and take our suffering away (Matthew 11:28). He didn’t come to give us yet another laundry list of dos and don’ts in order to be right with Him.

When a soldier goes into or prepares for battle, there are certain things that he or she must wear. In today’s world some of those things could be a helmet, boots, and an armor plated vest. But I’ll ask you this: is it the soldier or the vest that he is wearing that stops the bullet? Which one does the work? The answer is the vest! If the soldier could stop the bullet, then why wear the vest? This is why we don’t see soldiers doing battle in three piece Armani suits!

If this is the case with modern warfare (and historical battle as well), why do we assume there would be a difference in the spiritual realm? We clothe ourselves with Christ, yet become consumed with doing the work of protecting our minds from sin on our own. It’s as if we’re saying that Christ is just a shell we wear but really has no stopping power. And that’s not true at all!

This verse isn’t calling the Christian to fight against the lusts of the flesh in his own strength. Instead, it is giving the Christian the answer to how to battle through the lusts of the flesh: Jesus Christ. We all struggle somehow in our lives with the lusts of the flesh, that is, the sinful desires of our minds. Alcohol, pornography, depression, anxiety, anger, and drug abuse are just some of the struggles that we all have or have had in the past. But we must come to the realization that there is nothing we can do to fight against these desires. That is why we must put on Christ.

The way I read this verse, putting on Jesus Christ is making no provision for the sinful desires of our minds. It isn’t telling us to put on Jesus and then work hard, focus, concentrate, and obsess with fighting against our sinful nature. That would be no different than telling a soldier to put on a bullet proof vest and then focus all of his attention on stopping the rounds being fired at him. Imagine what war would look like if that’s what all the soldiers were doing. They’d never accomplish any of the objectives of their mission because they’d be too focused on stopping bullets!

The same holds true in our Christian lives. When we put on Christ, but then spend the majority of our time attempting to do the work that He has, is, and will be doing for us, we lose focus on the objective of the mission: spreading the Gospel! We become sin conscious and self-aware and forget about the rest of the world out there that is waiting to hear about Christ.

Friends, the rest that Christ came to give us is from both the physical and the mental stress of having to fight our way through our sinful nature. It is by His blood and by His sacrifice that we have that rest. This is why we are told to put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:11). The armor is Christ Jesus, in whom we have forgiveness of sins and right standing with God Almighty. By clothing ourselves with Christ and reminding ourselves daily of our standing in Christ, that is, righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21), we are protected from the sinful nature that was.