"Dressed for Success" Part 2: The Breastplate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation

The breastplate and the helmet protect the body’s most vital organs: the heart, the lungs, and the brain. These organs are the source of our physical life. Without them our physical bodies will perish.

In the same way, our souls, the source of our spiritual life, need protection, and God has provided the means to do that. As St. Paul reminds us, we need to “put on” the breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation.

To put on righteousness is to put on Christ, to live rightly, to love God above all else, and to love others. As St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Rom. 13:14)

For me, I feel like God is saying that I need to guard my heart by living righteously and avoiding the occasion of sin. I like to remember that adage: “Garbage in, garbage out.”

If I fill my time and my mind with garbage (watching immoral television programs, listening to gossip, etc.), then inevitably that will bear fruit in my life, but not the kind of fruit I’d be proud of. If, rather, I fill my time and my mind with good things (studying and meditating on God’s Word, doing good works, etc.), that will bear the right kind of fruit, the fruit that leads myself and others to eternal life.

The book of Proverbs has good advice for guarding your heart:
“Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.
Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.
Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.
Take heed to the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure.
Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.” (Prov. 4:23-27)

To live righteously, then, I need to keep my eyes straight ahead, focusing on Jesus. I need to follow Him along the straight and narrow path that leads to life, not the wide and easy path that leads to destruction.

To put on the helmet of salvation is to trust in God’s mercy and in the power of his sanctifying grace. I need to remember that salvation comes from God alone. He has won the victory over sin and death. I need to choose the winning side. As Joshua challenged the Israelites shortly before his death: “Choose this day whom you will serve…; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”