The Belt of Truth

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

THE BELT OF THRUTH

Eph 6:10-18

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

NIV

Being aware that we are to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power instead of our measly power, which is no power at all, and that we must put on the full armor of God,  we need to take a look at this armor. Of course, we know that we need it because we face the rulers, and authorities, and the powers of this dark world and spiritual forces  of evil in the heavenly realms. If we do not stand firm, with the full armor of God on us, we will be overcome by those dark forces. However, with the full armor of God in place we will be able to stand our ground against those dark forces. Therefore, the first thing we put on is the belt of truth. We know the word of God is truth, so we build our lives on the truth of God. The interesting thing that we have discovered is that Jesus is the truth for he has said that he is the way and the truth and the life. In fact, we cannot come to the Father except through Jesus, who is the belt of truth in the armor of God. In that sense, we are clothing ourselves with Jesus, after all we have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, cleansed completely, sort of in the same way that we cleanse ourselves before putting on our daily clothes, we are cleansed by God so we can put on His clothing, His full armor. We are also filled, to overflowing, with the Holy Spirit. We have the mighty power of God working within us, so it would be right to live in accordance with the truth of God, Jesus. Paul was using the armor of the Roman soldier as an example of the armor of God, and so this belt worn by the soldiers was very important, for it held the shield in place and it kept their bottom covering up as well as a place to keep their sword. If we wore our trousers without our belt, we might find our trousers done around our ankles. This would be bad on both levels, as first, our lower body parts would be exposed, and secondly, with our trousers around our ankles it would make it difficult to stand our ground, in fact, just trying to take a step forward could cause us to fall flat on our face. This means without Jesus we would indeed be falling on our face. We cannot take any stand that has any merit, without Jesus, our belt of truth. Let us buckle up and face the enemy head on, just as Jesus did in the wilderness, as the enemy attempted to get Him to fall. Jesus sited the word of God, the truth, and put the enemy away. So we clothe ourselves, starting with Jesus our belt of truth.