MONDAY - Devotional

READ: Ephesians 6:16

(Answer the question/s below in your app notes)

• What does having faith enable you to do?

We were huddled up around Coach Velasco, chugging water and hugging each other sadly after the brutal loss. Xenia Christian had been our rival for years, and this loss stung a little extra. Our coach, a kind, gentle attorney who volunteered his free time to help us shoot free throws, took a deep breath. “Girls,” he began soberly. “It’s like I always say: offense wins games. But defense wins championships.”

It’s true in basketball, and it’s true in real life: a strong defense is invaluable. The Bible even talks about a strong defense in Ephesians 6: “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Faith shields us from the evil one. That doesn’t mean bad or hard things will never befall us, but it does mean that faith emboldens us to look the evil one directly in the face and say something powerful: I serve the God who defeated you.

Just like in basketball, we still have to show up and play the game. We still mess up. We still lose sometimes. But when we put on the “defense” God gives us—faith, truth, and trust in him—we’re not facing life alone.