The first armour mentioned in Ephesians 6 is the Belt of Truth. It’s quite striking that this is the first and as much I believe the order may not be in that of their importance; I strongly believe it is foundational that truth be first established in our lives or else, we would be building our lives on a lie and fighting spiritual battles while standing on the platform of falsehood.
Truth is Jesus. Truth is what He has said about our lives and what we must live by.
So putting on the belt of truth is choosing to live by what God says rather than what the society says.
Living by the Truth is living a life of complete dependence on God, sold out and yielded to him. It is living out the Christian life not just saying one thing and doing another. When we live like this, we are walking on the same paths that Jesus walked on.
Girding our loins with the belt of truth is one way we can remain standing after fighting the battle. Remember, the goal is not just to fight and win but to remain standing afterwards.
There are a lot of lies the devil tries to sell to us and subtly too. They are so subtle we don’t know when we fall for them. Gradually, we start imbibing these lies and soon they become our own truth. We begin to interpret life in the light of these ‘truths’. The danger with this is that we begin to live a life less than God intended for us and over time we completely exchange the truth of God for our new ‘truth’.
We loose the capacity to withstand the enemy when we are on the same camp with him, when we partner with him and believe what he sells to us. For example the saying that “Those who love you the most will hurt you the most”. This may sound true but when you look closely at it you will realize that if you believe this, you will begin to love less. It will make you afraid of loving like Christ. You will not grow in your love walk because you are afraid of loving too much and being hurt. This is the first step to becoming selfish.
But Christ tells us to love our neighbours the same way He Loves us- completely and selflessly. Whether we get anything in return or not, whether it hurts us or not, we glory in the fact that we have obeyed God and that is all that matters. If we stand on this ground, we will remain victorious against the wiles of the enemy.
Finally, it is important we understand the truth about who our enemy is. Never believe that your enemy is a human being and you are to fight him. That is a lie! Your mother-in-law is not the enemy neither is your step mom or grand father, let no man deceive you.
Fighting a physical enemy is putting on the belt of lies. Our enemy is the devil and not a human being.
Never forget that!
