About ARMOR
Inspired by Ephesians 6:11-12, ARMOR is a Christian faith-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that facilitates behavioral change as an active response to the spiritual warfare waged upon humanity by the devil. Rather than accept being a passive participant in this spiritual warfare, ARMOR boldly engages in it under the patronage of St. Michael the Archangel by enabling better habits that help humanity "to stand firm against the tactics of the devil" and to overcome vice with virtue.
Why change?
Behavioral change begins with a choice. Each choice you make is a battle in spiritual warfare for your soul. While Jesus redeemed humanity through his death and resurrection and God freely gives His grace to humanity for its salvation, everyone makes choices every day that demonstrate either acceptance or rejection of the need to cooperate with God's grace to be holy and happy. While eternal happiness exists only with God in heaven, we can experience true happiness even now on this side of heaven.
Everyone wants to be happy, and the world is filled with ways to seek happiness. True happiness comes by ways that strengthen your relationship with God, others, and/or yourself, and false happiness comes by ways that weaken your relationship with God, others, and/or yourself. Choosing ways of false happiness often leads to bad habits that erode those relationships.
Why now?
Without behavioral change, bad habits will continue to erode those relationships and will leave you feeling less happy each time you indulge them, and they can lead to eternal unhappiness (hell) rather than eternal happiness (heaven). You can see the effects of bad habits everywhere: depression, addiction, divorce, injury, suicide, murder, and Godlessness in a world created by God.
The effect you don't see is even worse, as Jesus says in Matthew 10:28, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna."
The time to act is now, "for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed." (2 Corinthians 6:2, Romans 13:11)
Why ARMOR?
Thirteenth century moral theologian St. Thomas Aquinas taught that virtue is essential to experiencing true happiness. He also taught that growing in virtue is a lifelong process of strengthening habits through repeated acts, aided by divine grace, to align human actions with reason and God’s will.
Based on that moral theology, ARMOR enables better habits aligned with virtues, which help you to experience true happiness. Its Better Habits program of behavioral change is rooted in Ephesians 6:14-17, which Pope Paul VI alluded to in the last section (entitled Defense against the Devil) of his address to a General Audience in 1972. In that address, he recalled “how often the apostolic method of teaching used the armor of a soldier as a symbol for the virtues that can make a Christian invulnerable. The Christian must be a militant; he must be vigilant and strong; and he must at times make use of special ascetical practices to escape from certain diabolical attacks. Jesus teaches us this by pointing to ‘prayer and fasting’ as the remedy. And the Apostle [St. Paul] suggests the main line we should follow: ‘Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’” (Matthew 17:21 [see footnote], Romans 12:21)
To overcome evil with good, ARMOR enables better habits to replace bad habits that weaken your relationship with God, others, and/or yourself. While other programs can lead to breaking a specific bad habit, their approach misses the mark in one or more of the following ways:
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Focus. Having a narrow focus on a specific habit fails to account for the whole person and total wellness based on the 8 dimensions of wellness. (ie. spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional, social, financial, occupational, and environmental)
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Replacement. Replacing one bad habit with another bad habit is something that often happens when the focus is only on a specific habit.
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Identity. Identifying yourself based on your bad habits undermines your identity in Christ and can have a negative impact on your mental health. Who you are is different from what you've done, and your identity as a child of God made in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26) does not change when you struggle with a habit that weakens your relationship with God, others, and/or yourself.
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Idolatry. It is idolatry to identify your higher power as being anyone or anything other than the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Exodus 20: 3-5)
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Duration. The duration of some programs is limited to a period of time (eg. 21 days, 90 days, etc.), which correlates to varying ideas about the length of time it takes to break a habit. However, habits are broken only as long you restrain from them, and they exist only as long as you exercise them.
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Cost. Some programs cost money, and some are so costly that money can be an obstacle to getting help with breaking habits that weaken your relationship with God, others, and/or yourself.
ARMOR's Better Habits program uses a whole-person, total-wellness approach that guards against replacing one bad habit with another bad habit, and it identifies you as a child of the Triune God. Better Habits is actually a way of life that is lived one day at a time to overcome bad habits by striving to grow in virtue, which leads to true happiness. It costs you no money and is faithful to Jesus' command in Matthew 10:8 to give without cost. The only requirement to join ARMOR is your desire for true happiness and your willingness to put away the old self and put on your new self. (Ephesians 4:22-24)
What's next?
Start the Better Habits program, which involves a daily commitment to exercising better habits, tracking better habits, and reviewing better habits.