The Dangers of Not Wearing Your Belt

I move behind the gathering table and wrap my arms around husband's shoulders for a quick evening hug.  As I pull away, my fingers catch on his red t-shirt to find a new hole in the sleeve.

"How'd you get that?" I frown.  "This is a new shirt."

He shrugs and twists his head downwards to survey the damage, as surprised and clueless as I am. 

Long rips, torn holes, and jagged tears in both t-shirts and roomy carpenter jeans are all common occurrences here on the farm.  Any piece of clothing that billows even the slightest bit away from the smooth contours of the body is a magnet for every tree limb, briary thorn, or sharp-edged metal farm equipment to catch on, leaving its mark for me to roughly repair with needle and thread. 

It's not that husband tries to ruin his shirts.  It's just inevitable.  And if he's not careful, loose clothing can be deadly on a hay farm with lots of heavy moving equipment and mechanical moving parts, where the few seconds required to disentangle yourself can mean the difference between life and severe injury or even death.

The dangers of loose clothing are what come to my mind when reading through Ephesians 6:10-17 where Paul speaks to Christians about putting on the full armor of God. 

Last week, we talked about standing firm in our convictions and not losing ground in the slippery moral slope of our world. One way this passage tells us we can stand firm is by putting on our armor--the ever familiar belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of peaceful assurance/confidence, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and sword of the Spirit.

The passage I have been settling on reads, "Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth" (v. 14).  The NIV states it in more modern language as "Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist."

In all honesty, the breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, and sword have always seemed more important parts of the battle uniform than the belt.  But, that's because I wasn't considering the original audience and how it would have understood the imagery.  

In Paul's day, the majority of people--even men--would have worn long, flowing robes, which would catch on everything they passed, especially on the battlefield. The belt, then, was an extremely important part of the soldier's armor since it cinched in those flowing robes, drawing the fabric in close to the body so the soldier could move more easily in the hurried chaos of the moment.  In this scenario, if a loose robe caught on the edge of a chariot, a splintery wooden cart, the corner of another soldier's armor, or even his own horse's gear, those few seconds of distraction could be all the enemy needed to plunge a sword in his side.

With this image in mind, I can more easily understand how vitally important it is to be girded with a belt of truth.  If I do not know with certainty the truth of who God is according to what He has taught in Scripture....if I don't know who I am as a child of God saved by grace in Christ--if I am not surrounded by those truths and others found in His Word, then my doctrine and precepts are like loose clothing, which will "catch" on every false whim or doctrine that comes my way.

I will become entangled in lies, half truths, which will hinder my ability to be successful in the battles against Satan in this world.  Not being certain of truth is not only dangerous to my witness on this earth and my eternal soul but is also dangerous to the eternal souls of everyone I come in contact with.

Christ, Himself, warned His followers of this same concept, saying, "'See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many...Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many'" (Matt. 24:4-5,11). 

This is why it is so very important to pick up our Bibles daily, to commit ourselves to studying and memorizing Scripture.  This is why it is necessary to question and examine everything against the plumb line of God's Word, even if it's something said by a Christian we deeply respect as an extremely knowledgeable man/woman of God.

As Paul said, "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good" (1 Thes. 5:21). 

Recommit yourself to faithfully study the truths of Scripture this week.  Put on that belt with me so we can stand firm together.

The Lawnmower Approach to Sin

Yesterday afternoon found me hobbling around the house, my big toe red, and throbbing.  By evening, I could barely walk without yelling at the children to watch out for mommy's foot!  On a whim, I brought the foot up to eye level.  Only then did I realize my symptoms weren't caused by an ingrown toenail but from a rose's thorn buried deep under flesh.

Digging it out would be painful.  But there wasn't another choice.  I couldn't treat the symptoms without treating the cause.  

Twenty minutes later, I unearthed a quarter-inch long sliver and began a day-long road to recovery.

Such an injury likely wouldn't have stayed in my mind had I not been recently working on my hopeless flower bed, trying to keep the hay field from reclaiming its property.  The bed's problem is similar to mine--what lies beneath the surface.

Try as I may, I've been failing to destroy the Alicia Bermuda runners that sprout up here and there among the pink roses and white verbena.  No matter how many times I mow them down or spray them with Round Up, they always come back. Husband tells me that if a single joint of a runner is left in the soil, it will take root and grow again.

The only remedy?   Dig it out.

Such is the advice Jesus gave in The Sermon on the Mount. When speaking of lusting after a woman in one's heart as being adultery,  He said, "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell" (Matt. 5:29-30).

Dig it out.  Cut it off. 

Even an eye-less man can lust after a woman in his heart, so surely Jesus was not advocating maiming one's body.  Yet, He used such extreme language to demonstrate the seriousness of sin in our lives.

Even a nearly-invisible, quarter-inch long piece of sin is so destructive that if it were possible to chop off an arm or dig out an eye and remove sin in that manner, we would be better off doing so. 

Mutilation of the body, though, is not the way to dig out sin.

The only way is to take our sins before the Father, confess them, turn from them, and seek in the Holy Spirit's power to commit them no more. God alone has the power to help us dig out the roots of sin in our lives.

The problem is, especially with sins we deem "small" or insignificant, we want to take the lawnmower approach to them.  We want to mow over the top, eliminating any visible evidence of sin in our lives so that we look holy, righteous, blameless in the eyes of our fellow man. 

But the problem is we never take the sin seriously enough to dig out the roots.  As a result, one week, one month, one year later, that root breaks through the surface again.

Paul admonishes Christians to "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.  Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.  You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.  But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips" (Col. 3:5-8).

Put it to death.

Dig it out.

Putting aside sin isn't easy.  It's painful to dig out something so deeply embedded in the flesh.  But as Christ sought to show us, the eternal consequences are much more severe should we choose to let it remain in our lives.