When a solider goes into battle he never knows the outcome. And even if him and his comrades win the battle they don't know who will win the war. As Christians in supernatural war we already know the outcome. We go into battle as victors. Colossians 2:15 says, "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." Here Paul is giving the Colossians an image of a triumphal Roman military procession, where the spoils of war and the defeated foes were paraded through the streets of Rome.

Who is leading this military procession? It is our victorious head, Jesus Christ. Who, as the verse before says in Colossians 2:14, nailed our record of debt to the cross. What does this mean for a soldier of Christ now? It means we go into our everyday battles as victors. He won the war already and now everyday, through the spirit of God, he gives us the power of his own victorious self to face battle against the world, our flesh, and Satan.

God saw no one on earth who could win this war for his oppressed people, so Christ walked this earth in complete obedience amidst trial and temptation to become a perfect victor. The prophet Isaiah foretells of such a man who would be a shoot coming from the stump of Jesse. In Isaiah 11:5, he says, "Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins." Paul later refers to this prophecy as he encourages the Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6 where he mentions the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth (vs.14).

When Paul encourages the Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God he is telling them to put on Christ. He is our only righteousness and truth as we walk this earth in his footsteps. This is how we as soldiers can stand against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11), just as Christ did in the wilderness. At the cross Christ struck a decisive blow to Satan, weakening his power to accuse the elect of God. Faith in our victory in Christ is what will extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one (Ephesians 6:16.) We stand firm in battle, because we know the one who has won the war for us, and he is our greatest weapon.