As Christians, we have all been appointed by God to serve as ambassadors in this world to bring a reconcilation of peace between God and humanity. God makes His appeal to the world through us. We need to fear the Lord, submit to Him and persuade others to follow Him. Jesus died for all people so that those who accept Him as their Saviour can live again. Jesus dies because of His love for us. How can we not live for Christ because of this love shown for us.

John the Baptist was one of the first people to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, even when he was in the womb! John understood who Jesus was in God's Kingdom and what He ws called to do. John prepared the people for repentance, waiting for Jesus to come. John pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God, the one who came to save us from our sin. Where do we point - to ourselves or to Jesus?

Joseph was the earthly father of Jesus but showed great humility in standing in the background to allow the focus to be all about Jesus. Everytime that God speaks to Joseph, he responds immediately with faith and trust. Joseph was engaged to Mary but when he found out she was pregnant his first thought was to break the engagement, but instead, he obeyed the words of God and followed God's agenda. We need to follow God's agenda and not ours. In becoming a Christian we need to realise that we are a sinner and that we need to be forgiven. We give up our own rights to follow Jesus and we need to follow Him without conditions.

Prayer enables us to be soldiers for Jesus. With prayer we can defeat Satan because we are always in communion with God. Our prayers need to include praise, thanks and confession and not just requests for our needs. We need to watch and be alert to Satan's plans and always keep praying for God's victory in our lives or the lives of others as we pray for all of God' people.

We are told in this passage to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Satan is powerful and we are told to live wisely and make the most of every opportunity to share the good news of Jesus. Salvation is available to everyone who accepts Jesus as their Saviour and can only be given by Jesus. The helmet is assurance of our future salvation. We are reminded in Hebrews 11:1, "that faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see".