Buckling The Belt Of TruthSýnishorn
THEME: Buckle the belt of truth by fully believing WHAT GOD SAYS ABOUT YOU.
Verses like 2 Peter 1:3-4 often left me asking questions:
Which promises? I don't think I have ‘escaped the world's corruption’ yet! Have I been overlooking the key promise somewhere?! How do I put the promises into effect? How can I be a ‘partaker of the divine nature and escape’ …’?
The verses that I am sharing in this reading plan are the best answers I have found to those questions. The verses in these readings include the Biblical term ‘flesh’— which might be translated in your Bible as ‘sinful desires’, or ‘sinful human nature’. The ‘flesh’ is basically the evil and selfish desires that spring from our bodies. We are all different in our ‘fleshly’ weaknesses, but the Bible holds the keys to victory for everyone.
First of all, it is important to remove a common excuse for sin. In Romans 7:24 Paul exclaims, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Paul is NOT negating what he says in chapter 6 and 8 by that desperate cry. (The second half of chapter 7 is Paul’s explanation of 7:5-6.) The burden of the whole passage is that we are to no longer to live as slaves of sin (6:6, 8:2).
Let’s take a look at all the spiritual armor that God gives us in Ephesians 6:10-18. I want to focus on the ‘belt of truth' (6:14). But I want to first draw an analogy with the ‘helmet of salvation’ (6:17). If you BELIEVE you have been SAVED, you are wearing the helmet of SALVATION!
In a similar way, to buckle on the ‘belt of truth’ (6:14), BELIEVE what God says ABOUT YOU. There are lots of correct doctrines that you can believe— and that is all part of the belt of truth, but if you are preparing for spiritual war against wicked spiritual forces, you haven’t actually buckled the belt around your waist until you BELIEVE what God’s Word says about YOURSELF!
For practice, read Ephesians 1:1-2:10, asking God in prayer to help you believe what these verses say about you as a believer in Christ. Claim everything Paul says about ‘you’, ‘we’, or ‘us’ in these verses. Clothe yourself with the amazing truths about YOU/US found in this passage.
About this Plan
Belts work a lot better if they are buckled, don’t they! It is similar with the belt of truth. Vaguely believing that the Bible is true means that you at least have the belt of truth in your belt loops. But is it buckled? The theme of this seven-day study is that one buckles the belt of truth by fully believing the amazing things God says about YOU.
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