THE ARMOR OF GOD (PART 7), by Pastor Atukwatse Onesmus
“You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst.” Joshua 7:13
It is not by accident that the first piece of armor that the apostle Paul lists in Ephesians 6 is truth. The New American Standard Bible puts it this way:
“Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth…” (verse 14)
This Scripture is actually an Old Testament quote from Isaiah 11:5, a prophecy concerning the Messiah:
“Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins, and faithfulness the belt about His waist.”
It is very significant that we are commanded to gird ourselves with the same armor as the Lord Jesus, for when we put on the full armor of God, we are actually clothing ourselves with Christ Himself! Consider a parallel passage, found at the end of Romans 13:
“Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law. And this do, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is almost gone, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” (Romans 13:10-14)
When we “gird our loins with truth”, we are putting on the Lord Jesus, who is the truth. By choosing truth, we are choosing to repudiate the devil and all his works and ways, because the devil is a liar. When we choose to know, believe, speak and live out the truth, we take away the enemy’s greatest weapon, deception.
Truth is a part of our new identity in Christ, and therefore we should have nothing to do with falsehood in any of its forms. Earlier in the book of Ephesians, Paul wrote:
“But you did not learn Christ in this way [in sensuality, impurity and greed], if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.”
Ephesians 4:20-25
As one who has been inseparably joined to Jesus, the truth, will you choose to live in the truth today, laying aside all lying, deception, exaggeration, insincerity, flattery, gossip, slander, and truth-withholding?
It is only when we do so that we are ready to pray.