Last weekend, Karen and I visited our daughter and son-in-law (and his parents) in Connecticut. Besides having a great time with family, I enjoyed going to a men’s breakfast on Saturday and church on Sunday. Pastor Steve Thiel spoke at both and shared many amazing facts about the human body that I had not known. You can hear his sermon on Psalm 139 at: www.christproclamation.org.
In recent weeks, I have written about several factors involved in motivating us for missions. The first four items are to be converted, to be convinced that Jesus rose from the dead, to be confident that the Bible is the Word of God, and to be committed to obey the Word of God. Another prerequisite for our involvement in missions is to be clothed with the belt of truth.
In Ephesians 6, the apostle Paul exhorts the believers in Ephesus to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. We must be equipped with the whole armour of God in order to withstand the attacks of the enemy of our souls. In his book “When the Enemy Strikes,” Dr. Charles Stanley writes: “Roman soldiers wore a long tunic that was cinched in at the waist by a belt so they could move quickly and decisively without tripping over the garment. The belt was wide; it extended down from the waist to cover the abdomen and, in some designs, the groin area. The belt had a place to attach a sword.”
Dr. Stanley continues: “The abdomen was considered the most vulnerable area in a sword fight because it was soft and fleshy tissue. A sword could penetrate the abdomen easily, and wounds to this area were prone to intense and often uncontrollable bleeding. Abdominal wounds were highly susceptible to infection. Abdominal wounds very often led to death – immediate death in battle as a result of bleeding, or death soon after the battle as a result of infection.”
Just as Roman soldiers needed a large belt to protect the organs related to the digestion of food and reproduction, so believers need to know and heed God’s Word. Dr. Stanley writes: “Paul was saying to the Ephesians, ‘You have to know what to take into your life and what to eliminate from your life. Truth must be the filter for all perceptions, ideas and dreams.’”
Besides discerning what we should take into our lives and what we should eliminate, we can know which relationships are based on God’s truth and which are not. Dr. Stanley writes: “We need to develop relationships that are based on God’s truth and that function in honesty, integrity, purity, vulnerability, mutual sharing and support, and genuine love and respect. Relationships that are based on a lie function according to manipulation, deceit, pride, grasping greediness, and the concept ‘Do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you.’”