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If you’re a Christian, do you realize that you are in a fight, a real war, every day of your life? Are you prepared for the fight that faces you?
We know from Scripture that as Christians we have an enemy, and that enemy has one objective: to destroy us. He is ruthless and he knows how to fight and does it very well.
In 1 Peter 5:8 (ESV) we read: “Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” In referring to Satan, Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10 ESV).
In the sixth chapter of Ephesians we find very explicit instructions on how to fight this enemy of ours. Paul clearly tells us that if we put on God’s complete armor, we can successfully resist all the devil’s methods of attack. Have you ever learned how to put on the armor of God? Do you do it on a daily basis? If you don’t, you are going to war completely unprepared and headed for defeat.
Let’s look at each piece of this armor.
The first part is a protective belt called truth (Ephesians 6:14). Since Satan is a liar and the father of lies, his favorite tactic is to lie to us, and he’s very good at it. He will lie to you in your thought life, he will lie to you through what you hear and believe from other people, and through what you read and see. We must learn to detect his lies. The Word of God must become our testing station whereby we determine what is true and what is a lie from Satan.
Satan loves to get us to rationalize our way into untruth. We put our human reasoning to work, coupled with our sinful nature and the lies of our culture, and the first thing you know we’re justifying sinful behavior—such as lying, affairs, unethical behavior of all sorts. We justify ourselves with words like “But this is different.” Or “I really love him.” Or “I know God understands. . .” Friends, God never changes his mind and the Bible spells truth out very clearly. We have to know that truth and obey it in order to defeat our enemy.
When there is any area of untruth in our lives, we are walking right into Satan’s territory, and we’re on our way to defeat. Have you told or done anything untruthful which needs to be set right? If so, do it today. Don’t mess around in Satan’s territory of lying. When you do, you cannot wear the belt of truth and without that belt, you are wide open to the enemy’s lies.