In this New Year’s episode, Kimberly Faith and her dad, John McLarty, invite listeners to see 2026 as a year of intentional spiritual warfare—not in fear, but in confidence that Jesus has already won. Starting from the picture of Jesus “born onto the battlefield,” they remind us that when we are born again, we too are placed in the middle of a very real spiritual conflict. Drawing from Ephesians 6:14–17, they explore the armor of God—belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel of peace, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and sword of the Spirit—and show how every single piece is actually fulfilled in the person of Jesus.
Rather than a checklist of spiritual duties, the armor becomes a relational picture: when Christ is at the center, we are protected, stable, and effective. When self, culture, or lies replace Him at the center, our “gear” loosens and we become anxious, vulnerable, and ineffective on the battlefield. With vivid military illustrations, personal testimony, and practical examples from business, daily life, and past seasons of drifting, Kimberly and John urge listeners to step into the new year fully suited up in Christ—fighting from His victory, not for it.
Key Takeaways
Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.
Kimberly Faith: Well, dad, we’re in the last few days of 2025.
John McLarty: That is totally amazing. It’s hard to believe.
Kimberly Faith: It’s hard to believe. You know, when we were thinking about what we should talk about to get ready for the new year, what kept coming to my mind. Yeah, we just finished the whole gifts of Christmas series, and one of the thoughts that I kept thinking about is, you know, Jesus was born onto the battlefield. You know, he was born into the enemy camp. And we are too. When we’re born again, we’re born again onto a battlefield, and we’re in a spiritual warfare.
John McLarty: Yeah. The powers that be at the time sought his death.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. Even at two years old.
John McLarty: Yeah.
Kimberly Faith: You know?
John McLarty: A bunch of babies killed.
Kimberly Faith: Exactly. Yeah.
John McLarty: Children killed.
Kimberly Faith: And you think about, I mean, I always think about, like, for example, Frank Paretti’s books or the Lord of the Rings series where you get to see the spiritual warfare. You get to see it in, like, living color. Like, it’s brought alive. And I think there’s nothing greater that we can do than to stay spirit focused instead of flesh focused or, you know, keep our, I think about if you and I were right now, instead of sitting here in the studio, we were standing in the middle of, you know, the conflict, for example, some of the conflicts in The Middle East.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: We would be on guard.
John McLarty: Be on guard.
Kimberly Faith: We would be probably not just being so casual in our conversation, but we would be looking for the enemy.
John McLarty: There would be an awareness that we’re in a warfare.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And I think that’s
John McLarty: That should be true because we are in a spiritual warfare.
Kimberly Faith: We are 100% in a spiritual warfare. And I think about the verses in Ephesians where, you know and I don’t know. Why don’t you look up the verse right before Ephesians Six talks about the armor of God. Doesn’t that say be sober, be vigilant for your enemy, Satan is your enemy. He’s prowling around seeking whom may
John McLarty: As a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. And so that’s not a suggestion. That’s a command
John McLarty: That’s a danger.
Kimberly Faith: That’s a command.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And it’s a command given in love because it’s true. And we are on a battlefield. And so I think about 2026. I mean, 2025 was just full of, I feel like God has just been downloading into every area of our lives and giving us opportunities to minister in so many ways, and it’s very exciting. And not even like, we’re not even looking for it, but that’s because that’s how God is. He’s like, you want to fight the battle? Here, I’m going to give you victory here, victory there, because I’m going to do it through you.
John McLarty: And I’ll just mention you’ve shared with us recently some of the stats on this very, this very ministry, this podcast
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: Going to the entire world
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: To many nations.
Kimberly Faith: To countries where they’re not even allowed to have the freedom of religion. And it’s and I don’t you know, I say that that is definitely the hand of God. It is nothing we just want to be obedient. We just want to do what God wants us to do. And part of that, I think, is we as the church need to be more aware of the spiritual battlefield. So, we kind of precipitated the idea to do the armor of God, this podcast to begin 2026 was a little message that was given or a great message, not a little message, a great message by one of the lay people in our church.
John McLarty: Paul Harden.
Kimberly Faith: Paul Harden. And, you know, his dad died in 2025.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And his dad, Tom, was a great preacher.
John McLarty: And his brother died on the battlefield.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. Ethan. That’s right.
John McLarty: He was familiar with warfare.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And he, of course, Paul is now a retired military guy, and so he gives a lot he gave a lot of great military illustrations
John McLarty: He did.
Kimberly Faith: In, the armor of God, message that he gave that this is kind of inspired from. But I kind of want to start, let’s start by just reading Ephesians Six. Why don’t you read verses 14 through 17 for us?
John McLarty: I will. Stand therefore having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So Ephesians 6:14 through 17.
Kimberly Faith: I want to before we kind of dip into all these different pieces of armor, I want to say, first of all, just one of the things that I had not realized till I heard, what Paul said, I had not thought through. Because I studied the armor of God and even wrote a series of devotionals about it, but I did not think about this, that each part of the armor that we’re going to talk about is Jesus himself.
John McLarty: That is amazing.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. That was such a
John McLarty: Jesus is the armor.
Kimberly Faith: He is our armor. And so we’re going to kind of talk about in this podcast how each piece of this armor is not a self powered virtue that we try to maintain, but each piece is fulfilled in Jesus himself. So going back to really the theme of all of our December devotionals and devotional podcasts, that Jesus, when he’s our center, when he is the center of all we think about, all we do, all we say, then we are more and more, guarded from the enemy. We are not defenseless. We become victors, not victims. So in other words, this armor isn’t a burden. It’s a powerful gift of the relationship we have with Jesus.
John McLarty: I’m glad you said that because I just want to prep our listeners to really pay attention, maybe even take some notes. Because Paul, being a military man, trained in the military, and they’re all about let’s do it by the book. Let’s follow the procedures.
Kimberly Faith: Right. SOP.
John McLarty: He brought out this point. He said, if you’re preparing for battle, you’re issued your gear. It might be a certain vest. It might be shoes. It might be your helmet. And they’re all important for the battle.
John McLarty: He says, why would you leave one of those in the locker room?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And if you did, you would be in huge trouble. Like, soldier, where’s your helmet?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t go to warfare without the bulletproof vest
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Without the proper shoes, without the helmet, without your sword, or, you know, your rifle.
Kimberly Faith: Your gun. AK 47.
John McLarty: But every piece of armor is important and valuable to us.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: So that really made me think, I really need to pay attention here
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: To these armor parts. And it’s interesting that they are all from Jesus.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But they have different aspects to them.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. And it’s even greater than they’re from Jesus, they are Jesus, you know, that’s what kind of struck me. It’s like, wait a minute. Well, let’s start. The armor the first part is is the belt of truth. We know that Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He isn’t just giving us truth, which he does. We talked about in our earlier podcast in December about the gift of the word.
Right? How that is a written word, but it’s also Jesus himself. Well, bringing it right back to the belt of truth, which, you know, I think Paul talked about Paul Harden, not to be confused, Paul the apostle, talked about, how when in the military, the belt he talked about, I think, the, more of the first through fifth century military, how this belt was it secured everything. And he was talking about how when they do rucks.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: They may have 80 pounds of armor and body you know, just, equipment on them. And if it’s not secure, it’s rubbing, it’s jolting, it’s you know, throwing them off balance. It’s not, they can’t run in it, and how truth keeps everything else secure.
John McLarty: Yeah. I’m just thinking of this analogy now because in my younger years, we did a lot of backpacking. And the old backpacks would just have your shoulder straps. But then one of the new innovations of backpacks in the seventies was the belt.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah.
John McLarty: The belt around your waist.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And that changed everything. I’m thinking of that belt, and this is the belt of truth
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Around your loins. And you’re carrying it from your core
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Hips instead of your shoulders
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: Just made all the difference in the world.
Kimberly Faith: Huge difference.
John McLarty: I’m just comparing that to what Paul said using that analogy. And that, you know, in warfare, that vital area and even in strength training I heard you talk about it. That’s your core.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And it needs to be strong.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: It needs to be protected.
Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And, you know, we use physical examples, and Jesus did this to teach spiritual principles. And when we operate physically from our core, whether that’s just getting out of a chair, getting out of bed, when we engage our core we don’t hurt our back. We don’t you know, we’re healthier because it protects our back, really. And, you know, what good are you with a broken back? And I think Jesus using this belt of truth example, it’s the truth that secures all the other parts that keep everything working well. You know?
John McLarty: Then he said, I am the way
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: The truth. Not just, I’ll show you the way and the truth. I am the way, the truth, and the life. That’s so intriguing.
Kimberly Faith: It is. Throughout this podcast, I’d like to give the opposite. So when Christ is not our center, then something less than truth is, quote, holding us together.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And it loosens our belt. It loosens our belt. And the enemy then has more access to our inner parts, you know, and our life becomes less stable. Let’s just use the military example. If your belt is loose or if your gear is loose and you’re trying to run towards the enemy, your gear is probably going to knock you in the head or disable you. We have to have..
John McLarty: Truth isn’t sure.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. If the truth isn’t fixed. And Jesus, you know, throughout the word of God, Jesus talks about truth. In the first concept study, we talked about the poles of influence, and where is your truth coming from, you know? And if your truth is coming from your own opinion, if it’s coming from anywhere but Jesus who is the truth, then you’re on shifting sand, and you’re vulnerable to the enemy.
John McLarty: You know, in the chase the little rabbit, we talk about the poles of influence. The opposite of truth is our lies.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And lies come, the father of lies, Satan.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: But then humans. If Satan was out of the picture, we still lie to ourselves.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: So, but the opposite of truth is lies.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: And you know, even in the garden, Satan did challenge them to what has God said.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: So he accused God of being a liar.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: He didn’t really mean it.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Well and you bring up the fact that Satan is not the only enemy. The enemy is we have the flesh that is with us all the time, and then we have the world culture that is constantly, you know, justifying itself and lying to us.
John McLarty: Influenced by the lies of man
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And Satan.
Kimberly Faith: Right. So that belt of truth is critical, and of course, we know the truth. God made it so easy for us. We don’t have to guess what the truth is. It’s all written down.
It’s all written down.
John McLarty: Yes. Jesus is as we’ve said, the living word and the written word.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right.
John McLarty: So the word of God contains the truth.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: It is the truth.
Kimberly Faith: Well, so then we go to the breastplate of righteousness, and we discover in the Bible that, in Second Corinthians, the Bible says, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And Paul the apostle said that he longed to be found in him not having my own righteousness, but with that which is through faith in Christ. And that’s in Philippians 3:9. The point is that this breastplate of righteousness that protects our heart is Jesus.
John McLarty: And that’s so key.
Kimberly Faith: So key.
John McLarty: Because this goes back to salvation. Salvation is not our own righteousness. It’s not our own works. We can’t do good works.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Salvation is having, we’ve got to be as righteous as God to be accepted by God, and that’s a gift from him. He gives us, he makes us righteousness. And just that’s the born again Christian.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: That’s what being born again is.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: That new creature is made as Second Corinthians says we are made into his righteousness.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: I mean, the righteousness of God, but the key phrase, in him.
Kimberly Faith: In him. And so we talk about righteousness, and just to be clear, there’s righteousness, of our soul and our spirit that’s irreversible because Christ’s gift of salvation is eternal. We’re actually going to in the new year, we’re going to talk about eternal security. We’re going to go into that. But, God willing.
But then there’s the process of sanctification, which is, you know, we aren’t talking about our soul and spirit. We’re talking about bringing our body into subjection. And when we are putting our armor on, that doesn’t mean we take our salvation off and on. That’s not what it’s talking about because we can’t do that. We’re once we are in Christ, we can never be unborn, right, or not receive his genetics.
But what happens is if we become self righteous or we become something less than Christ righteous, and our motivations are incorrect, we’re shedding that armor and that protection, allowing the deception and the lies that we are somehow maybe not good enough because we’re not good enough.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: You know, it’s distorting what keeps us secure and protects our heart, our heart being our desires. You know? I’ll give you an example. You know, when I start serving the Lord out of a desire to please men, to be a men pleaser, to be a pleaser of people instead of pleasing God. That’s a form of self righteousness. What that does is that well, it does so many things, but it takes me out of the place of humility, which makes me at enmity with God, right?
So suddenly, the armor that’s there, in my mind, it disappears
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And makes me vulnerable. And I wonder if I’m wearing armor or not, I get darkened. My way of perceiving things, suddenly the enemy’s attacks, it appears like they can make progress against me when they can’t. They can, you know, somehow take something that Christ has given me away. And I’m not even talking about my salvation. I’m just talking about the presence of God, you know, protecting our heart. Our righteousness as found in Jesus Christ protects our heart. When we become self righteous or rebellious in any way, we leave ourselves vulnerable.
John McLarty: Yeah. And I think that’s a good point because we talk about self righteousness. So we have this righteous nature that can’t be changed.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And that’s why we have eternal security.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And it’s all because of God. It’s by grace through faith. But that can be obscured by self righteousness or just plain old unrighteousness.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Just falling back into, you might say, obvious sin.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: You know, just picking old habits back up.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And that’s our tendency. That’s the tendency of the flesh, is to bring back those things.
Kimberly Faith: And when we remove
John McLarty: That’s kind of the struggle of the Christian life.
Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And when we remove
John McLarty: Yeah, that’s a good point. So this breastplate of righteousness, we have it’s Jesus.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But we can, in essence, cover it up.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. Or we can cover it up or we can forget we even have it.
John McLarty: Forget we have it.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Because we spiral off into this really independence from God, and then we’re trying to stand on our own, trying to guard our own heart instead of knowing that Christ already does. You know? So again, the breastplate of righteousness, that’s all Jesus. So, dad, the next one is the shoes of the gospel of peace.
John McLarty: I think that’s bringing Jesus to others. We, you know, we have Jesus in our born again nature, but when I think of shoes, I think of action. I think of walking. I think, you know, beautiful are the feet, you know, the feet.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the gospel, carry the gospel. You know? And it’s funny that he uses the word peace here, in Ephesians that they’re shod with the gospel of peace. Because peace a lot of times we think of peace as being freedom from, you know, the worry about bills or the worry about war, but he’s talking about ultimate peace, which is reconciliation with God.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: You know? And we can apply this, of course, in a lot of different ways, but this is the gospel of peace, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and salvation is reconciliation of humanity to God. Ultimate peace, which is freedom from anxiety, spiritual anxiety.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: You know?
John McLarty: Think of the path of peace too. Just thinking of walking in the woods without shoes on, and you’re continually having to think about little rocks and branches. Even just in our driveway, it’s gravel, not concrete. And you’re continually thinking about your feet are hurting, but you have shoes on. You’re walking in peace.
Kimberly Faith: I love that. That’s a great example. And so from the perspective of, because you think about this as a part of our armor, right? So we put it on. Well, as born again believers, we are shod with the gospel. And you think about so in this battle, we’re in the battlefield to win souls for God’s glory.
John McLarty: So bringing that peace to others, that was kind of where I was coming from.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah.
John McLarty: Walking. And we’re not just sitting here. We’re walking.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And, you know, bringing the gospel of peace to others.
Kimberly Faith: So if you don’t put on, if you aren’t putting on your gospel shoes, so to speak, you know, you’re just kind of existing on a path that’s kind of aimless, and you’re really not doing anything but just trying to get walk the next step without being too
John McLarty: Without worrying about sharp stuff.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. Whereas when you’re again, this goes back to Jesus. Jesus said, you know, that he says, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives. In John 14:27 and in Ephesians, it talks about he himself is our peace. We have to put on Jesus, you know, every day. And the gospel, you know, we can I mean, I believe the gospel has a power all by itself. It’s not dependent on how I deliver it to have an independent power because Jesus is the word. But think about how much more freedom you have to share the gospel when you’re doing that in the peace of God because you put on Jesus.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: You’re not having it’s not painful.
John McLarty: Right. Think about we put on the new man. We’re told to put off the old man and put on the new and our associate pastor Kenny Francis gave an example one time. He says, when you get up in the morning, you go to your closet and you decide what you’re going to put on.
Kimberly Faith: Interesting.
John McLarty: And that’s the decision we make
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Is to put on the full armor of God.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: Which shoes are we going to put on?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: What if we don’t even put on any shoes?
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: And we’re just like, again, walking around trying to not step on a sharp stone.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And peace, I used to think that peace is just the absence of problems. It’s really not. Peace is just the ability to let God handle the problems. And when we put on him as, you know, our armor, part of that is our shoes, we’re freeing ourselves from the typical, I guess, distractions of worrying about the mundane.
John McLarty: Yeah. Yeah. For Jesus said, take no thought for tomorrow.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: Sufficient are the troubles today you know, thereof today.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: But, know, it’s not that we don’t plan for, you know
Kimberly Faith: Retirement or whatever.
John McLarty: But don’t worry about tomorrow.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: That’s the key.
Kimberly Faith: I think it’s also perspective. You know, we’ve talked a lot about God’s perspective in earlier podcasts, and I think suddenly when we’re putting on the, you know, the armor of God, and part of that is the shoes of the gospel of peace, is that we’re putting, so our bills are not the most important thing on our mind. Our bills are kind of like, okay, God, if this is what you want me to do today, if you want me to take the day off and go minister to my neighbor, then you’re going to have to take care of the bills. And I’m sure he can just eye roll and says, like, that’s such a big deal for me. You know? But we have that perspective. This is good. And you know, we again, when we don’t have Christ as our center, then even really the smallest trouble makes us stumble into chaos and anxiety because we’re trying to stand on our own two feet instead of on Christ.
John McLarty: Just think about, just hearing about, thinking of the civil war days, the shoes. Shoes were a huge deal, which the army the North had better and more prevalent shoes.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, that’s interesting.
John McLarty: And some of the Southerners didn’t even have shoes. What a hindrance in a battle.
Kimberly Faith: Oh my gosh. Right. Yeah. You have to be at least somewhat hyper focused on where you’re running instead of where the enemy is, which is a great analogy. It’s a great analogy. So the next piece of armor is a shield of faith. We know that faith, first of all, is a gift from God. It’s not something we manufacture. The Bible is, you know, the Bible talks about the gift of faith and not just for salvation, but the gift of faith. I think that God gives us all a measure of faith. It’s what we do with it really, that matters. And then Hebrews calls Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
John McLarty: It comes from him, and it’s a shield. It’s referred to as a shield. That’s really interesting. The shield of faith.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And it’s strong not because of us. That’s why it’s so interesting to me. I remember when I first kind of understood that that faith was a gift. Because, you know, you hear all these songs that say, you gotta have faith. You know, you just gotta increase your faith. No. Faith is a gift from God. We believe. We use that faith to believe.
John McLarty; Right.
Kimberly Faith: You know? I’ve been given a gift of faith that, you know, that certain things will happen if I do certain things. That faith is the evidence of things hoped for.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: No. It’s the faith is the
John McLarty: Evidence of things not seen.
Kimberly Faith: Right. And so when we believe like when I went bungee jumping, you know? I’d never been bungee jumping before, but I saw people doing it. I’ve seen videos. I saw people out there in that little platform doing it before I did it, And I didn’t know the man who was strapping me into that bungee apparatus, but I had faith in the equipment. And I did, well the manifestation of that was I jumped. I just swan dived, you know, 123 feet meters down into a river gorge. We’re given supernatural faith, and it’s in such a great, so much of a greater object than a bungee apparatus. It’s in the character and nature of God.
John McLarty: It’s trusting in him.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah.
John McLarty: So he’s the author and finisher of our faith. So we trust, which is believing.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But the faith comes, it’s again, all of these, that’s so interesting, these are all Jesus.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: These armor parts
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Come from Jesus.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Now we can exercise them. We can put them on. We can take advantage of them.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: You know? Or we could let, you know, the breastplate of righteousness, you know, not put it on.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Utilize it.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Well, and like the shield of faith
John McLarty: The shield of faith is key.
Kimberly Faith: It’s well, think about it. We the shield of faith is you know, if he is the author and finisher of our faith, that means this shield is really something he made. He’s fashioned it. And remember, he’s already defeated Satan. So when we decide to go into warfare without that shield, then we’re pretty much, I mean, we’re laying bare parts of our..
John McLarty: To the fiery darts of the wicked.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. And why wouldn’t we do that? So when we talk about using the shield of faith, really, again, it all goes back to making Christ our center instead of ourself, instead of our own thoughts, our own ideas. Do we trust the Lord?
John McLarty: Lean not unto our own understanding.
Kimberly Faith: Right. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path. Right?
John McLarty: He will direct our paths.
Kimberly Faith: So that shield of faith, you know, again, all these are I’m just trying to imagine what this looks like in real life. And to me, one of the ways I see this being very practical is in the way I run my business. First of all, acknowledging it’s not my business, it’s God’s business. And then being open 100% to letting his wisdom, his character, his you know, who he is be in charge and not me. And then knowing that if the Lord leads me to take a certain action that doesn’t make economic sense..
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: That, well, guess what? He is my shield. He is my defender. He is my strong tower.
John McLarty: Thinking of the verses, the just shall live by faith.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah. That’s good.
John McLarty: Should live by faith.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
John McLarty: So faith comes from God, from Jesus, but we live by faith.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: It’s a decision to trust in him.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. Yeah. For salvation and for life.
John McLarty: And for life.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Okay. So then we have the helmet of salvation. And what did you think about you know, how would you explain this helmet of salvation and, of course, Jesus? Again, we’re talking about Jesus.
John McLarty: Well, we could go back to our podcast on the mind. And so a helmet, you think, protects your head. That’s where our brain is, which is, we think of that as where our mind, our thoughts. So salvation, when you utilize that helmet
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Which, again, we’re talking about we can’t lose our salvation and get it back.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But we can you know, talked about in the scriptures, people that just get back into the carnal world, they actually can forget they were ever saved.
Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah. I experienced that.
John McLarty: And so they’re still saved by the grace of God, but they’ve lost that shield.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: They’re just so their thoughts
Kimberly Faith: Their mind.
John McLarty: Are not guarded.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Oh, and I’m just thinking about remember we used the example of the wall in Nehemiah guarding our mind? The wall crumb can crumble.
Kimberly Faith: Right. It’s a good example.
John McLarty: Salvation is not, to use a term that’s popular today, top of mind.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Top of our mind is our salvation, our faith, our belief, why we’re here, and that guards our mind.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. You mentioned that even a born again believer can forget they’re saved. You know, when I you know, like fifteen years ago, when I was, you know, just completely gone off God had just I’d just taken God off my radar and fallen into a very carnal Christian life. I say Christian because I was born again, but I was not living for Christ, and my mind was sold out to being carnal.
There were times I wondered if I’m even saved. How could I do this and be saved? Because my mind, I was living with the carnal mind instead of the mind of Christ, and I had abandoned the mind of Christ. And, you know, God in his great mercy and grace brought me back. And I’m just so grateful, but that didn’t happen overnight. That wasn’t me going from the mind of Christ to the carnal mind. You know, well, I’ll just take off my helmet over here for a minute, you know, and just dabble in this carnal mind over here. And then I’d put the helmet, you know, back on. Well, let me take it off a little longer, you know, today, and let me let me operate under Kim’s mind instead of God’s mind over here.
Well, pretty soon, I’d forgotten where I laid my helmet. And, you know, and I think it took me kind of being crushed for me to remember, you know, and God just picking me up and dragging me back to where I left my helmet and putting it on me almost to go back to the basics of, hey, you know what? You can’t live this life as a born again Christian and have any kind of peace and any kind of usefulness in your life without having your mind protected from this world because the darts are going to get you. You know?
John McLarty: I think it’s interesting you said it doesn’t just happen overnight. I think it’s in Second Peter. It talks about the steps of growth, and it’s adding to our faith, virtue, and
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Then godliness and patience and long suffering.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: It says if these things abound in us, we’ll be fruitful. But if they’re lacking
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: We can forget we’re even saved.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: So it’s a process.
Kimberly Faith: It’s a slow burn.
John McLarty: It’s a slow not having those things.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes.
John McLarty: You know, not progressing as a Christian, not being discipled.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: And not allowing yourself just to experience Christian growth.
Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. And there, and I think we’ve said this before, there’s nothing more miserable than a born again believer who’s living without their armor. I mean, we can all visualize what it would be like to be on a battlefield. I mean, like, let’s say you’re in, you know, you’re in the middle of a of a battlefield in somewhere in The Middle East or anywhere there’s Ukraine, you know, and you have no gun, you have no body armor, you have nowhere to hide, you’re just out there in the open. No shoes. Right? No protection. No cover.
John McLarty: You’re a sitting duck.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. You have no cover and you’re just waiting to be shot.
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: Well, of course, you’re going to be anxious. Of course, you’re going to be full of fear. And Jesus said, no. I’m all these things. I’m all this armor. All you have to do is make me the middle. Keep me the center, and all these you get all this armor, and you don’t have to live this way.
John McLarty: Interesting it starts with girded with the
Kimberly Faith: Belt of truth.
John McLarty: The belt of truth. Jesus is the truth.
Kimberly Faith: Well, and that kind of brings us to the sword of the spirit, which is the word. And we gosh, in the last podcast or two podcasts ago, we talked about the gift of the word.
John McLarty: Exactly.
Kimberly Faith: We have the word just, I hate to say, use the word mystical, but it’s very mystical to me that Jesus both is the living word
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: And that he’s given us a written word, and they’re intertwined.
John McLarty: I’m just thinking, you know, every podcast we do is about the word.
Kimberly Faith: Exactly. Yeah. If it’s not, then it’s not worth listening to.
John McLarty: Because it’s the truth in love.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Where the truth comes from, the word, and the spirit of God. But Jesus is the word, the living word, and the written word. That is so amazing.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: That’s the sword of the spirit.Because the sword is what you use to
Kimberly Faith: Offense.
John McLarty: To offense.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s an offense, and it’s an offensive weapon. And, again,we’re reminded in the Bible that our warfare is not flesh and blood, but it’s against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness and wicked places. And when we are engaged in actively reading the word, obeying the word, obeying the spirit, surrendering to Jesus. We don’t have to create opportunities for victory. We just don’t. He just does that. He’s like, you know what? Okay. Over here. There’s a skirmish over here. I need you to go over here, and I need you to use the word, and I need you to maybe even love this person and show them the truth and win this battle because this is where I’m guiding you. This is where I’m guiding. You’re like the carrier of the word.
You’re the carrier of the truth, and you’re the vessel. You’re the mouthpiece of God. Go over there, and I’m going to show you what to say because Jesus told us don’t worry about what you’re going to say. Hey. I’ll give you that. Not that that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study because the funny thing is some people use that verse that say, well, I don’t have to study God’s word. Well, it’s God’s word in us that becomes alive and gives us the words that we need to say when we’re fighting his battles.
John McLarty: Yeah. And in Revelations 19:13, it says, his name is called the word of God.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: That’s so interesting.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: Because, yes, he is the word, but he’s given us the word.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: So we best know him through the word. Because our own mind, it can be deceptive. That’s where people they’re just like, oh, I’m just going to go get a direct revelation from God.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Well, if it doesn’t line up with this written word
Kimberly Faith: It’s not from God.
John McLarty: Leads to trouble.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. It’s again, every part of this armor we’ve talked about is Christ. It’s all Christ. And it goes back to kind of the overarching message that I think has become the, central to my life anyway, is that Jesus has to be the center. He has to be what motivates us. He has to be the king. He has to be on the throne. If he’s not, then to use the word of God without the power of God is so ineffective. It’s kind of like somehow Hollywood depicts Christians as screaming wife abusers or hypocrites.
Well, I’m not saying there aren’t people that aren’t like that. I’ve been like that, just ineffective because I did not make Christ my center, so my sword was very dull because I was operating under Kim’s power, not God’s power. And, you know, truth and love has to be consistent.
John McLarty: Yeah.
Kimberly Faith: Your truth can’t be violated by your lack of love because God’s truth is love, you know? And so it’s, to me, when Jesus is our center, all we have to do is surrender. We’re just surrendering to him, and he keeps our sword sharp, you know? In every area of our life, we had this armor. We are afraid. The more that we make Christ our center, the less we are afraid of the battle.
John McLarty: I’m just thinking of myself for 2026. I just want to picture myself and the listeners, picture yourself in a real warfare situation where it’s dangerous. People are wanting to kill you.
Why would you be out there without your helmet?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Without your shield?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: With no shoes?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Without your loins girded? So it really makes me want to refocus and review this
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: Throughout 2026, this full armor of God.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And not to over complicate it. It’s not complicated.
John McLarty: Not complicated.
Kimberly Faith:You know, Jesus needs to be the center of everything we do. He needs to be the lord of our life. Jesus, you know, he really did dumb it down in the scripture for us by saying that all the commandments are love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. I know that I don’t mean to sound like that. I’m being you know, making things easy. It’s not easy because we have our enemy. That’s the whole reason we need the armor.
John McLarty: Yeah. And there’s a different aspect to each one of these pieces of armor, you know? Like, why would you have, you know, say your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel? So you know how to share the gospel, but then the breastplate of righteousness. You’re just living this ungodly life.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: You’re going to share Jesus with somebody, and then, you know, the next day you’re in the papers.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Drinking and driving or something.
John McLarty: Drinking and driving.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. I mean, in order to be because what that does is it makes us less effective. Again, we’re taking off the armor. We should have some fear because the enemy is real.
John McLarty: Or what if you just go around with this self righteousness but you really don’t have the love and you’re not sharing the gospel?
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: You don’t have the concern for souls?
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: That doesn’t work either.
Kimberly Faith:That’s right. That’s a valid point, dad. I mean, each piece of armor is important.
And, you know, I brought up the two great commandments simply because I think there are times that we can be overwhelmed by all the things we have to do. And for me, it’s nice to bring it back to the basics. Well, if I am loving the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind, that means I’m not out violating him by drinking and driving.
John McLarty: You’re following Jesus without the armor.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. So it’s definitely worth studying each piece to make sure we’ve got it on, you know, just like your armor check before you go to war
John McLarty: Right.
Kimberly Faith: Every day, but also it happens naturally when we put Jesus as our center. I think going back to the initial point about this podcast was it was a kind of a lights on moment for me to understand that Jesus is every piece of this armor. And not only is he the armor, but he gives us the armor.
John McLarty: You know, just to kind of, a summary point here is the purpose of warfare is you want to win.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Exactly.
John McLarty: And Jesus won.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. He already won.
John McLarty: Jesus is the winner.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. He’s the winner, and he says, hey. You’re the winner too, but you need my protection to win, and so put on your armor.
John McLarty: Amen.
Kimberly Faith: That’s what we’re going to do for 2026, aren’t we, dad?
John McLarty: That’s the goal.
Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the truth and love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mac. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.
