In episode 65 of the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, host Greg Ryan continues his series on Ephesians 6:14, focusing on the breastplate of righteousness. He explains that righteousness is a right standing with God, granted instantly through the gospel when a person confesses Jesus as Lord and believes in His resurrection. Greg ties this declaration to key scriptures (John 3:16‑18, Matthew 6:33) and uses the Roman breastplate as an analogy for spiritual protection against the enemy’s attacks. He describes a daily practice of mentally “putting on” each piece of God’s armor, likening it to communion, to reinforce faith, remind believers of their covered status, and empower them for spiritual battle. The episode ends with an encouragement to persist in this discipline and a promise of future teachings.
Welcome to episode 65, John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 65. I want to continue to put on the armor of God. We're in— and we're still in Ephesians 6:14. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness. So we've already put on the belt of truth yesterday, and today we're gonna put on the breastplate of righteousness. And this is extremely important, and they're all gonna— you're probably gonna hear this every time in every episode, and I apologize in advance, but But this is an extremely important piece of armor. This protects your internal organs. This is your— besides your neck or your head, this is where you have a death blow. This is where the Roman soldiers, you know, they had to put the mantle on and they had to put the metal or the armor, and this, you know, kept spears away from them. And if it was strong enough, it kept arrows away. So this is an important piece of armor. But what is righteousness? And in my mind, this is a right standing with God. So if you, if you for some reason don't think you have right standing with God, you can't put this, you can't put this breastplate on. So you're walking around in, in the world taking on all these fiery darts from the enemy with no breastplate. And the fix is so simple, it's almost laughable, because it's called the good news. It's called the gospel. Once you've declared Jesus the Son of God and declared him Lord of your life, you will always be qualified to put this breastplate on, because as soon as you declare him Lord and you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead you shall be saved, and you are immediately declared righteous. And that is so important because we go back to— if you remember back in, I don't even know what episode, not even going to try to call numbers, but it was back when we were talking about the, the power of the seed or the kingdom of God. And it's in Matthew 6:33, Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added unto you. Well, we talked about the kingdom of God and God's way of doing things, but we really didn't touch on— because I was talking about the seed— but the righteousness. And righteousness is just a fancy Christian word for right standing. That means you have been declared— this is not something that you can do on your own. This is something that God has to declare you righteous. And that only happens one way, you know. And I've told people 100 times, 1,000 times maybe, that you get one— I, it's in it, and this is Gregology, but this is kind of how I see heaven— is you get one, you're going to get one question from Father God, I believe, and it's, what have you done with my Son? And if you can say, I made him Lord of my life, God's gonna say, stand over here to my right. And if you said, well, I, you know, I heard all that stuff, but you know, I, I didn't buy into that, God's gonna say, stand over here to my left. And he put his— he puts his sheep to his right and the goats to the left. And I don't think you want to stand at the left side of God. I think you're gonna want to be— when you stand before Father God, you're gonna want to say, I declared him— I declared Jesus Lord of my life. I proclaimed the name of Jesus. And one of the most famous, if not the most famous, is probably top 5 for sure, is John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And then if you go to 17 and 18, I want to just keep reading. A lot of people stop there because that's where that crazy guy— you've seen the rainbow hair guy. Maybe I'm dating myself, but back at all the sports way back in the day when he would stand behind in golf, in golf matches, he would have the rainbow hair and he'd have John 3:16, and he'd be at baseball games behind home plate. He would be everywhere. And I'm sure it was different guys, maybe it was the same guy, I don't know, but he always had the John 3:16 in his hand. A lot of people know that, and I had seen that, and you know, being a non-believer, I didn't know I was, but you know, I went and looked up John 3:16, so I knew all about John 3:16. But John 3:17 and 18, for God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And I don't know if you've ever read that all the way through, but if you've been reading the Gospel of John, I'm sure you have. God is saying, and Jesus said, he who believes is condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And that's why we— the call— we— that's why the name of Jesus is so powerful, because at that name people are— every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess. But if you'll confess him on this side as Lord, then you will be declared righteousness. And that's why I want to bring you all the way back to putting on the breastplate of righteousness. Once you've done that, now all you got to do is just remember every morning. And really, this is more of a mental and a spiritual picturing of when I've— when I've put on the whole armor of God, it's more kind of like taking communion. Is where you do these things in remembrance of me. You know, as often as you drink the wine and eat the bread, you're remembering the Lord's death. It's kind of a— it's kind of the same thing. You're putting on the whole armor of God as a way to remember, hey, this is a battle, and God did these things for me. And as you're putting these things on, when I gird my loin with the belt of truth, I remember you know, the things that, that I, you know, that, that truth stands for. And I, and I think about the truths that I have inside my spirit and inside my soul. And then when I put on the breastplate of righteousness, then it reminds me that I am in right standing, that I, that I'm a child of the King. I am, I am a, I'm a child of Father God. I can boldly go into the throne room of grace. And so these things kind of build up your faith as you're As you're praying and as you're doing this every morning, it becomes more and more natural to put all these items on. You know, it does something. I'm not going to lie to you. It does something inside your soul when you start putting these articles on. It does a couple of things for me. It reminds me that, you know, we still got the punk out there that we're having to fight. And it reminds me also that, hey, I'm covered. God has me. God's given me this armor, and I can go out into battle. I can stand confidently and know there's other things that I need to do, but I can, I can know that I'm covered if I take a stand and just stand. Well, that's enough of standing for now. I am going to cut this off short. I've felt myself about to start talking about a different topic, and I'm just going to fight that urge. And I just want to thank you for being a part of this podcast. I will— I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
