True Christians Have DENTS in their Armor

One of my favorite ministers is John Ramirez. Truly, he has been the motivating factor of me to step out even bolder as an Evangelist. If you don’t who he is, Evangelist John Ramirez, is a fiery, bold, real former high priest in Satanism turned radical Christian. I love him being that I am from the great state of New Jersey, and he’s from the Bronx, New York. Not only does he keep his message real, honest and blunt, but I love the street way he delivers it that only true tri-staters understand! ONly a tri-stater will know about stompin the Devil out wit yo tims! Lol!

One of the real reason why I am truly inspired by this evangelist is not only his powerful testimony, but learning spiritual warfare. At a point where I did not understand why all of these patterns and cycles of financial loss, job loss, relationship hurts, angry and bitter spirit, yada yada...etc, it is because of being spiritual attacked. Not a lot of Christians in church like to talk about spiritual warfare which truly needs to be taught more.

Reading his book Armed and Dangerous, Ramirez talked about being proud of the dents in your armor. See, I want to make it to have and the Lord to see that my armor is tarnished. This means that I went through battles, fought demons, overcame trials and tribulations and win souls for Christ. We cannot be sitting pristine as a Christian and think it is a social status or to look cute. True Christians are a threat in the kingdom and have been persecuted, tried, tested, and have gone through fights.

As Ramirez discusses, we must take the OFFENSE and be aggressive in the Body of Christ. No more can we succumb to this docile image of this hippy-dippy, politically correct, afraid to speak the truth church. You know, I was never always like this because my testimony was overcoming being a lukewarm Christian - half in the world, half in Christ. Until, I was all in to Christ did I truly mature in the Lord. I am so thankful that I have friends of different backgrounds and for God to have me witness by simply being their friends. But today, the biggest harm that we do as Christians is keeping this pristine, cute, “can’t be touch” aura. Everyone now has different testimonies and have different levels of degrees that God put on your lap, as God doesn’t put more than you can handle. But you should still have dents in your armor.

We need to take pride in our dents and not be ashamed at all. At first, I was so ashamed to express my tests that I had to go to food pantries, go to social services, receive eviction letters, not know how to pay rent, have people lie on me, men only lusting after me, and being unemployed for months! BUT GOD! Be proud of your struggles because it’s meant to touch other people and witness that only God has gotten you through them. Revelation 12:11 reads, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” It’s like a person becoming a CEO of a company - you have MORE RESPECT for those that started from the bottom, went through the dirt to be where they are versus someone who never experienced anything to be in the position that they’re in. As the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 notes, true Christians are Christians are persecuted. A true Christian has dents.

Check out John Ramirez's Armed and Dangerous book here: