The Truth Shall Set You Free
My mom has a Billy Graham daily calendar sitting in the window sill over her kitchen sink. It has a cranberry-colored spiral binding across the top that allows for easy flipping of the pages. Each page has a brief devotional, dated with the month and day but no year, so it can be used year after year. She’s had it for so long it has quadrupled in size, with decades of love, fingerprints, and sink mist having puffed out the pages. Over the years, it’s been a joy to encounter a familiar anecdote from its pages, like a treasured friend you only see occasionally. And it’s always timely. Remarkably timely.
Today I was in my mother’s kitchen filling a glass with water when the calendar caught my eye. What a thrill the Lord is! The words on that page were not only edifying, they were crazily specific to what I had been thinking about and working on—specifically, I was thinking about and working on writing this very blog post on the theme of the belt of truth. Behold the words that the Lord and Mr. Billy Graham had for me:
“Jesus had the most all-encompassing mind this world has ever seen. His convictions were so strong, so unswerving that He was not afraid to mingle with any group, secure in the knowledge that He would not be contaminated or swayed. Fear makes us unwilling to give voice to our conviction or to listen to those of others—fear of rejection, fear our beliefs will be attacked, fear our faith might be shaken…Never lose your confidence in the truth of the Gospel! But—like Jesus—may you always be ‘speaking the truth in love.’”
If we are going to be like Jesus, always confidently speaking the truth in love, we have to first know the truth. If we are going to stand “so strong, so unswerving” as Jesus, we need some help. Because none of us is even close to having “the most all-encompassing mind this world has ever seen.” Graciously, God has given us some help and told us how to do this: “Stand firm therefore, by fastening the belt of truth around your waist” (Ephesians 6:14, NET).
How specific. And in case we’re wondering what exactly is truth, this thing with which we are to gird ourselves—He tells us that, too. Jesus Christ said that He Himself is the truth (see John 14:6). The Spirit is truth (see 1 John 5:6). The message of truth is the gospel (see Colossians 1:5). In the book of John, Jesus further expounds on the belt of truth and why we need this armor of God. While praying to God the Father for His disciples, Jesus declares, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:14-18, NIV).
So…we need to get us a Word! And to fill ourselves up with some Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We need to pursue it and guard it and cherish it and hunger for it. “Do not let mercy and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart” (Proverbs 3:3, NIV). Oh, hide your word in my heart, Lord!
Like Mary did, let us treasure up and ponder in our hearts all the truths we encounter along the way.
This is not only for our own good and edification, but also for bolstering our arsenal. Scripture is full of warnings against the dangers that lurk both outside and inside our camp. “Even from among your own group men will arise, teaching perversions of the truth to draw disciples away after them” (Acts 20:30, NET). Jesus Christ brought grace and truth, but ever since the foundation of the Church there have been enemies in the midst of believers who exchanged the truth of God for a lie (see John 1:17 and Romans 1:25). Having a well-buckled belt of truth around your waist is vital to standing firm and avoiding being swayed or naïve.
The book of James expounds on how girding yourself in truth not only saves your soul from death, but also helps you to not wander. James also encourages us that if we see another believer wander from the truth, we could help turn them back and help them to put on their belt of truth (see James 5:18-20). Like a flight attendant would instruct, you must first put on your belt of truth before assisting another disciple with their belt of truth.
In one of his letters, Peter describes the believers to whom he is writing as being “well-established in the truth” (2 Peter 1:12, NET). Yet even these believers needed a warning. A reminder that one must always be intentional about wearing the belt of truth. He warns them (and us), “Be on your guard that you do not get led astray by the error of these unprincipled men and fall from your firm grasp on the truth” (2 Peter 3:17, NET).
We must constantly seek, study, know, remember, clothe ourselves in, and live according to the truth (see 3 John 1:3; 3:4). Then we can do as Billy Graham exhorts us to do and always be speaking the truth in love.
When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His Word
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will
He abides with us still
And with all who will trust and obey
-From “Trust and Obey” by John Henry Sammis
Destiny Teasley lives in Nevada, where she is a lover of the arts, pop culture, and travel (you'll often find her daydreaming about being in Israel or Disneyland). She delights in encountering beauty in the world and helping others to see and celebrate it for themselves. Destiny studied at Baylor, UNLV, Oxford, and Dallas Theological Seminary. You can find more of her writing at her blog,whentherockscryout.com.