Christian Living

The Armor II —The Most Misunderstood Part of Gods Armor

by J.W. Phillips
02/04/25
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The Armor II —The Most Misunderstood Part of God’s Armor

The first instruction for putting on the armor of God is to gird up our loins with truth.

To understand what Paul meant by this instruction, it should be pointed out that the Roman soldier in Paul’s day wore skirts that were similar to Scottish kilts. So whenever these soldiers entered battle, the first thing they would do is to tuck these skirts under their belt so their legs would be unimpeded for the coming battle.

Girding the loins, then, had to do with a readiness to fight.

So how are we to gird the loins? Scripture says we’re to do it with truth!

To me, this first part of the armor is the most misunderstood part, for what is commonly supposed is that the believer is to acknowledge at this point that the Bible is the source and depository of all truth. Which of course it is, but wouldn’t this make the first part of the armor almost identical to the last?

Besides, a compilation of concepts—no matter how true, no matter how godly—doesn’t intimidate the devil. He can easily blow by all that—and will!

It must be made clear that the putting on of God’s armor is not a cutesy, choreography scene we do with the kids before sending them off to school.

This superficial view of spiritual warfare prompted G.D. Watson to conclude that “the great bulk of the visible church are like little children who play that they are gladiators, with rolls of paper like swords and little kittens for lions.”

Putting on the armor is much more serious than that. 

Moreover, there’s no way that armor-dressing can be reduced to a fast memorization-drill tacked on to the end of our quiet time.

The biggest reason putting on the armor does so little for many people is because they never understood the first step, which, very importantly, releases the power for all the other steps.

To better understand what this first step means, consider this verse, John 1:17: “But the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Here we see, through the use of the conjunctive, a contrast. On one side of the contrast is the law; and on the other side of the contrast is grace and truth.

So was the law not true?

No, the law was totally true; God never repealed any of it.

Well, then, if the law was true (and we might add in many ways gracious), what exactly was John contrasting?

Just this: As a transcript of God’s nature, the law revealed much about God’s character. These laws, instead of being a series of capricious commands slapped down one day, were deeply rooted in God’s character.

To violate any of these laws was to act contrary to how God himself would act.

However, all that the law reflected and projected was only preliminary, inasmuch as the full revelation, the real object of all that the law was concerned about, came later in a person.

Therefore, according to John 1:17, when Jesus came to earth, there was a transition from shadow (the law) to substance (Jesus).

Hence, truth—as John uses it, as Paul uses it—is making contact with ultimate reality, with him who is the truth.

A.W. Tozer said, “It is Christ who capitalized truth and revealed that it was not an ‘it’ at all but a Being with all the attributes of personality.”

This makes perfect sense when you think about it; because if God ordained that his power would flow from his presence, then the first thing the believer must do is to get into the presence of God.

In his book, Close to His Majesty, David Needham points out, “… the word presence, in both the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament Greek, is always the word for face.”

So, it isn’t just definitions and precepts we need; what we most need is to come into this very personal, face-to-face contact with God.

Are you able to remember times when you felt his presence, when God drew near and seemed so real? What a difference that made, right?

You already knew  that God was omnipresent, that he was present everywhere and therefore had to be near. But that knowledge wasn’t the same thing as those times when you actually experienced God's presence.

So, yes, it makes sense to you that experiencing God’s presence should come first, because gospel truth would intensify in that atmosphere, but the problem is: How can you assure and secure this contact with God’s presence?

Scripture says we can do this in three ways.

The first way to enter into God’s presence, according to Hebrews 10:19, is through a petitioning on behalf of the blood.

The symbol this verse uses to describe the presence of God is “the Holiest,” which actually refers to the Holy of Holies, into which only the High Priest could enter, and he could do this only once a year. It was there that the Shekinah glory would manifest.

By contrast, this verse in Hebrews tells us that intimacy with God is available every day if we’ll only approach him through all the virtue and value the blood has bestowed upon us.

To better understand this verse, it should be pointed out that the blood achieved at least two things necessary for accessing God’s presence.

First, the blood removed our sins once and for all; and by so doing, it expunged that which the eyes of God were too pure to look upon, sin (Habakkuk 1:13).

Even to this day the blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:7), which is exactly why we must purpose to part company from practiced sin before coming into God’s presence by availing ourselves to this cleansing .

Second, the blood persuades the worshiper how much he or she is worth. Value is determined by whatever someone is willing to pay. And, amazingly, God esteemed our value so highly he gave his very best, his own dear Son, Jesus!

When calculating worth, we must acknowledge that there’s no price higher, no gift greater, than what God invested in us.

This awareness of our great value to the Lord—this meditated, freshly-inspired truth that we are treasured by him—will then prompt us to praise the Lord, which is the next step for entering into his presence. Psalm 22:3 tells us that he whom our hearts desire dwells in the praises of his people.

Praise is God’s address!

Praise is where God will manifest himself!

Praise is where we will feel his presence!

In giving ourselves to a season of praise, our imagination will be exercised to see the Lord as the lover of our soul and the provider of every need. Accordingly, before we have asked anything from him, he has already done something enormously important for us: He has removed that spirit of heaviness (which the devil successfully exploits) through our exercise of praise (Isaiah 61:3).

Praise provides a boost to faith. It gives it energy—igniting faith, launching faith, propelling faith to soar!

According to Ephesians 3:17, such faith enables God to manifest himself more fully, more intensely, in our hearts. The Lord will always seek and meet extended faith.

The atmosphere faith provides helps God reveal himself and make known his ways.

Consequently, based on the unerring Word, we can say, “Lord, you have declared in your Word that if I draw close to you, you will draw close to me (James 4:8); and that if I open the door of my heart, you will come in and fellowship with me (Revelation 3:20).

So, Lord—right here, right now—I take authority over all contrary feelings, or even the absence of feelings, and declare I am in your presence—this due to the fact that I am drawing close to you, and I am opening the door of my heart to you.”

Having thus released our faith in this way, we will subsequently exercise our imagination to see the Lord graciously welcoming us.

Girding the loins prepares us for the battle by taking the most important step anyone can take, the one step upon which all the other steps depend, accessing the presence of God.

Since the presence of God is paramount for victory, we cannot allow this presence to be forfeited by protected and protracted sin, or by a lifestyle that seldom purposes intimacy with God, or by excessive times of preoccupation with the goodies of this world, or by the false notion that this is all serendipity: Such intimacy comes and goes, we can’t control it.

We can control it! Hobbies, moods, a careless remark spoken or heard, or anything else that would cast a shadow on our spirit must be immediately identified and modified.

The presence of God—that which protects us, that which releases spiritual power—must be accessed first before we are able to put on the other parts of the armor.

We’re just not ready until that happens.