The first piece of armor Paul lists when describing the Armor of God to us in Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 to 18, was The Belt OF Truth. When I decided I wanted to wear the armor of God, I didn't know what that meant. Its not as simple as hopping on Amazon and picking one out! It isn't something that you wear for special occasions and retire it to the closet until you need it again. As humans we tend to think in the flesh. The physical. The wants and needs of our weak flesh tend to override most areas in our life unless we are intentional to no longer make it so. Until we listen to the word of God and seek his word instead of our own. The same goes for our armor of God. Wearing it has to be intentional. We have to choose to put it on and keep it polished and repaired. The belt of Truth is so very important, for the opposite of truth is lies and lying is the devils language. Nothing good comes from lying, nothing good comes from the devil. It is definitely time to upgrade to the belt of truth if you haven't yet done so.
Well that seems easy enough doesn't it? I mean, we are taught the difference between lies and truth from a young age. I'm constantly teaching my kids the difference between truth and lies. Upgrading to the belt of truth should not be too hard right? We hear about truth everyday. Our culture is full of people cheering us on by saying to , “Live your truth!” “Be your truth!” That seems simple enough right? Just live your truth, but what if everyone has their own version of truth? Then how do you know what's actually true? I can definitely see how the devil uses that to his advantage. If everyone is walking around "living their truth", sooner or later we are bound to cross paths and see our truths indeed not line up with everyone else. My truth will quickly but heads with your truth. Your neighbors truth will look differently than your truth. You will start to question your truth , I will start to question my truth and we will quickly find ourselves angry, sad, and lonely because our truth is so different than everyone we are around. I can see that is the devils design. The divide and conquer mechanic many use today. I mean, it's actually super simple to pull off. It's not hard to get humans to argue with each other, getting us to argue over whose truth is the truest truth seems like a cake walk.
When I decided to upgrade my belt to a belt of truth I felt lost. I didn’t know where to start. My first thought was to google it like I do everything. I mean, The first thing I do when attempting to upgrade my in-game gear is to search the web for websites, blogs and YouTube videos for tips. When it came to upgrading my real life gear I headed to the internet. I had to stop myself real quick. This is real life. This life has real consequences unlike those in our video games. We should not blindly trust anyone or anything. I wouldn't head to Burger King if I wanted a steak and I wouldn’t look on the Xbox website to find out the PlayStation plus games for the month. We should not go to the internet, we should not go inside ourselves, and we shouldn't listen blindly to the words of others when upgrading our Armor of God. If we want to learn about the "Belt of Truth" and the Armor of God, we should get our info from the source, from the Bible. Don’t take my word for it, the Bible says it in Psalms 118:8 NKJV version 8 It is better to trust in the Lord Than to put confidence in man.
And if that isn't clear enough, Jeremiah 17:5-8 New International Version (NIV) makes it really clear, "This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord." “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
You see? We should never seek truth from man. We should never google for truth. We should always seek truth from the Bible. The Devil attacks us with lies and deceit. The internet is riddled with lies and deceit and a whole lot of opinions and feelings which are of the flesh. If we are to combat the Devil and his lies , should we counter him with his own lies? No! Have you ever tried to duel an equally geared player in PVP or defeat a boss whose armor and self heals just absorbed your damage? Those battles can go on forever! If your sword does 40 damage and their bubble of protection absorbs 40 damage, you're going to be battling forever or until someone gets tired. That is how I look at our battle with the devil. If we match his attacks with watered down truth AKA his own lies we will be battling him forever until we give in. We can’t afford to lose against the devil. We need to stand strong against his attacks by consistently upgrading our Armor of God. We need to upgrade our chintzy starter belts with the belt of Truth.
In John 17:17 , Jesus was praying to God for his disciples and he said to God,
"They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth."
We counter the enemies attacks with truth! With the word of God. We compare everything to the bible. We test everything against the Bible. We look to the Bible for our answers ALWAYS. We see what God has to say, not what man has to say. We must put our belt of truth on and stay rooted in the word of God. We must repair it daily! It usually costs us a hefty price and materials to repair our in-game gear, but it costs us nothing to repair our out of game because repairing it is not a punishment! It is a blessing!
The first gear upgrade is our Belt of Truth. We get our truth from the Bible, because the Bible is to be our measure of Truth! 2 Timothy 3:16 New International Version (NIV),
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..."We are logged in right now in a real battle of Good against Evil. It is time to upgrade our Armor of God Brothers and Sisters, starting with the belt of Truth!