Armor of God Series: Part 1: The Belt of Truth

Hello everyone. I've been feeling an urge to do an e-mail devotional of some sort for quite some time. I have decided to start my own because I feel it's what God is calling me to do. I decided to include basically everyone I know on the list, this includes people from camp, YWAM, family, and friends. These won't have any kind of regular schedule to them, they'll come as they come (although I'm guessing it'll be something like two per month) Anyways, I hope these can be helpful and encouraging to you. So here goes:

Oh, one more thing, I tried for ages to try to think up a decent title for this Devotional, and I haven't come up with anything I like thus far, so the current name “Thoughts from a Jedi Master” is a placeholder. If you think up something better (preferably related to my camp name “Yoda”) let me know!

Armor of God Series:

Part 1: The Belt of Truth

I figured the Armor of God would be a decent place to start a devotional series, and this particular topic has been one that I've had on my mind recently. First, the classic passage for this topic, Ephesians 6:10-18:

“Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the power of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 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. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helment of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and request. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

The Belt of Truth, the piece we'll be looking at, is possibly the most overlooked piece in the Armor of God. Belt of Truth? Pah, gimmie a shield of faith! Give me a sword of the spirit! Thats the kinda stuff I want! Why would we ever need a belt? Seriously, how many of you have read that passage and just breezed by the belt part? I know I have, but its importance has really come to my attention in the past years, so I want to look at it now.

Lets think about this for a moment. Lets say we're in Middle Earth, and we're about to fight some orcs. Obviously, some armor would be a good idea. So we put on our helmet, get our breastplate on. But wait? What do we attach our sword to? We hook the sheath onto the belt. Truth and the word of God (that being the sword of the spirit) are linked. Gods word provides us with truth, both about Himself and about how He sees us. Not only that, you'll likely want to wear something to protect your legs, so some sort of chain-mail leggings. These leggings would probably weigh, oh, about 20 pounds (I really have no idea, 20 is an arbritatry number I came up with. I think its safe to say they'd be heavy though seeing as they're made out of metal). If you disregard the belt, your pants fall down. Try fighting with your pants down. Try doing anything productive with your pants down. Now, I know the pants aren't part of “the armor of God” but I think the point still holds true. The belt is important, it holds everything together and in place.

As a bit of a side note, while the belt of truth is incredibly important, so are all the other parts of the armor. Each part is equally important and we will experience a lot of trouble if we are missing one. For example, the shield of faith. Faith is great, but lots of faith in something that is untrue (because we lack the belt of truth) doesn't work out too well. Every part is essential and needed for us to wage a successful battle in the spiritual war we're all in.

Truth is essential. Without a good, firm grasp on what is true and what isn't, everything else falls apart. Our pants fall down, and we are effectively neutralized in the spiritual battle.

So now you're thinking “okay, but shouldn't I be fine? I mean, I know Jesus is God, I know God loves me, shouldn't I be all good?” Well, the answer is no. See, satan is called the father of lies, you know why? Because he is very, very good at lying, and not the “my dog ate it” kind of lie, I'm talking about the kind of lies that we buy into. All of us believe lies about ourselves, lies about others, and lies about God. In general these lies are so ingrained into how we view ourselves and others that we don't even recognize them. satan knows how to lie well, not in a chronic way thats recognizable, but in a way that mixes actual truth with a bit of untruth, and thats what really messes us up. The best lies are the ones that have the most truth in them.

So, if these lies are ingrained and we don't even recognize them (or rather, we believe and buy into them) how do we deal with them?

One – read Gods word. It's the truth, it tells us the truth about Him, and the truth about how He sees us. How we think God views us and how we view God is very, very important and affects how we live and how we serve Him.

Two – spend time in thought and prayer, examine yourself. If you ever find yourself overly pessimistic about certain things and you're not entirely sure why, theres probably a lie you believe about yourself that is influencing your thinking and, by extension, your attitude and actions.

Three – identify, renounce, and resist lies. Lets break that three part thing down a bit so it makes more sense.

A) Identify is part of number two, you find a lie you believe about yourself (ie. Nobody will ever want to hang out with me, I will always be overlooked). Sometimes its a good idea to identify ways in which you behave that are caused by this lie (ie. If you believe nobody will ever want to hang out with you and that you will always be overlooked, you might have low self-esteem, you'll usually be really surprised when anyone shows interest in you (I know this was the case in the past and a very good friend was instrumental in helping me get past that), and sometimes you'll even try to deflect that interest because you feel you aren't worth their time)

B) Renounce means taking that lie to God in prayer, asking Him to forgive you for it (believing a lie IS wrong, but its certainly not a sin He can't handle), and asking Him to help you not to believe it anymore.

C) Resist refers to not falling back into that lie. Renouncing a lie isn't a one time thing, satan will try to get you believing it again. When I dealt with a lot of my insecurity at YWAM that wasn't a one time thing, I still have to pray against it and be watchful for signs that I'm falling back into it. It happens more often then you might think, I had a number of serious insecurity attacks while at camp this summer that I really had to pray like crazy to get through.

Heres an example of a lie I thought of. One of the best ways to deal with these lies and get our “belt” back on properly is to counter the lie with the best source of truth: the Bible.

“God can't possibly love me anymore, I've sinned far too much.”

Romans 8:38-39

“38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Keep in mind that this is Paul writing this, who participated in murdering Christians before his dramatic conversion. God loves you, period. Doesn't matter what you've done. Jesus blood is the atonement for all your sins, period. satan wants you to believe that Jesus' sacrifice was not sufficient to cover your sins, but it is, doesn't matter how huge you think your sin is or how many times you've sinned, Jesus blood is more than enough.

I have a whole list of possible lies in my YWAM notebook. I will put them in a second e-mail I will send out a day or two after this one.

Now, I don't want this just to be a me talking and you reading kind of thing. I want to challenge you and give you material which you can take with you to your personal devotions. I also want to have a totally open door to questions, thoughts, and anything else (including criticism if you think anything I say is off base). So, with each of these devotionals I will include a “homework” section and a “questions” section. The “homework” section will involve stuff for you to do in your personal devotions and the “questions” section will involve stuff I'd like to hear back from you on!

Homework: spend some time in thought and see if you can identify some lies in your life that you have chosen to believe. Also spend some time in prayer asking God to show you some lies specifically, Hes more than happy to help with that. He will not show you every lie you believe all at once because that would be too much for us to handle, He will show lies to you in a paced manner that you can handle. Once you have identified a specific lie, renounce it (meaning you choose to not believe it anymore, or, you choose to UNbelieve it) and give it over to God (meaning you ask Him to help you not believe it anymore and change you so that you aren't living as if that lie were true)

Questions: If you think up a specific lie that you think you might be buying into, e-mail me! I'd be more than happy to pray with you on that and try to find scriptures that address or rebuke that lie specifically.

Remember guys, God loves you like crazy, no matter what. Finding lies we believe with His help and removing them (again, with His help) are a big part of His plan to make our lives an incredible adventure in Jesus.

Also, if you want to forward this to any friends or family, please feel free to do so.

God bless!

-Ricky Isaak AKA Yoda