In episode 64 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, host Greg Ryan continues his series on the biblical armor of God, focusing on the belt of truth. He begins by recalling the opening of John 1:1 and emphasizes the need for spiritual preparation—humility, surrender, and brokenness—before donning the armor. Ryan cites Ephesians 6:14‑17 to outline the full armor and then zeroes in on the belt, explaining that Jesus embodies truth (John 14:6, John 8:32, John 1:14). He shares two historical illustrations: a Roman‑style rope belt used to convert a robe into functional battle attire, and a Greek wrestling tradition where losing the belt meant defeat. Ryan argues that many believers treat the belt of truth casually, leaving it on a nightstand or phone, which makes them vulnerable to Satan’s deception. He stresses that truth cannot be overcome by the enemy and urges listeners to intentionally put on the belt—and the entire armor—each morning, even if not in the exact biblical order, as a daily spiritual discipline. The episode concludes with encouragement to maintain this practice and a preview of the next episode.
Welcome to episode 64. We're gonna go to John 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 64. I believe God is finally going to allow me to put some of this armor on, so I wanted to kind of briefly go back and summarize. If this is your first time getting here, we have had 12 episodes of me getting you to this point. So we were talking about preparation, and if you remember back a bunch of episodes ago— I can't even remember back then— but it was the power of the seed. Where we had to get— and it's kind of a similar concept with the kingdom of God— is we've got to get— we got to prepare ourselves before we can be in the right position to be used by God. And I think that humility is huge. If you have not humbled yourself, remember, God resists the proud, he fights against the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So the one of the key elements to before you put on the armor is to humble yourselves. And we talked for a while about humility, we talked about surrender, we talked about brokenness. All of those things are important, but once you get yourself in a position to then stand, and then, and then we're going to pick it up in 13. It says, therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end, with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. I wanted to reintroduce you to the armor of God again today, and we're going to talk about the belt of truth. And as I've talked in a previous episode, Jesus is the truth. It's John 14:6 where Jesus is answering a question from one of his disciples named Thomas. And Thomas was— he just said that You know the way. Jesus did. And Thomas said, Lord, show us the way. And then Jesus in 14:6 said, you know, saying, saying to Thomas and all the disciples, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus added on to he is the way with the truth and the life. So Jesus is all of those things. He's also It mentioned in John 8:32 that you will know the truth and the truth shall make you free. So knowing the truth and knowing that Jesus is the truth, and then with every episode I start with John 1:1, and the Word is God and the Word was God. And when we go to John 1:14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, So you kind of get the picture that Jesus is the truth. So we, we gird our loins with the belt of truth. And I've got a couple of pictures that I kind of want to give to you in, in your, in your mind. If you remember, if you— the robes that the disciples wore and maybe the robes that Jesus wore. I have— I was told, I don't even know if this is true or not, I did not research it, but I've always pictured this when I put my belt of truth on. If I had a robe, if I was a disciple back, back in the day and was walking with Jesus, they said that those robes, they would go all the way to the ground. When they had to go to battle, when the Romans had to go to battle, what they would do is they would take their belt off. It was kind of like a rope belt. If you— they would untie their rope belt and they would take the, the two ends of that belt. It would be long enough where they could put it in between their legs kind of hike up that robe to where that robe would be more like pants or like gauchos or whatever, where if you can imagine putting the rope in between your legs and then pulling it up between your legs and then tying it around your waist. That way, you, you know, it's not easy to battle in a robe or a dress. They just kind of split it up so your both feet could operate a little better and you would have a little bit more agility in battle. So that's one picture, and then I saw another commentary that said that way back in the day, I guess the Greeks, or maybe when the Olympics started, I was told, or am told, that when men, and I don't want you to have to picture this driving down the road, but men had, back in the day, they wrestled naked except for a belt. And the way that the person lost was that the other person removed their belt from them, and that's how they lost the battle or lost the match. To have that belt taken away from you meant you've lost the battle. I'm not sure that the last picture is the best picture, but the pulling the belt away and losing your belt, you lose your battle. If you lose the truth, and really honestly, and that's what I wanted to talk about today, is I believe that the church has pretty much just set his belt down on the counter or on the nightstand or the coffee table or left it in the car, or you got it on your phone, but we're not digging into the Word of God like I think God wants you to. And I, I mean, present company included, I read it in the morning, and because of this podcast, I'm in it a lot more for many more days because I've got to come talk to you about what God's telling me. It's kind of cool how God is talking to me through his word, learning and seeing things. And the more I dig in, the more I see he's not a respecter of persons. It'd be the exact same thing for you if you dig into his word and into his truth. He will set you free. I mean, that's in his word. That is his word. And, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. So The other thing is this belt is a spiritual belt, and there's, there's nobody that can take this away from you once you put it on. So if you on purpose wrap that belt on you, Satan is not going to touch that belt. But if you leave it sitting on the counter or on the coffee table, it's pretty easy to take you down without any truth, because he is very— and remember back in Genesis 3, said that he is the most cunning of all the beasts of the field. The— your enemy is very, very crafty, and he knows exactly what he's doing, and he's done it a million, maybe a bazillion times before. And he knows how to trap you, he knows how to deceive you, he knows all of the— he knows all of the tricks. But the one thing he don't know how to do is defeat the truth. So I wanna encourage you, I'm gonna cut this off because I don't wanna just keep rambling, but the belt of truth, I picture myself, and I didn't tell you, but every morning I put all the whole armor on, and I literally find myself picturing myself putting each item on and then grabbing ahold of the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit. And just in full disclosure, I do not put it on in the exact order the Bible lists it, or Paul lists it, but I do put all the items on every morning. And I want to encourage you to do the same thing. And that's the whole reason that I wanted to teach on the armor of God. Had me go 2 weeks before we started putting the stuff on. We're here now, but you should be in a better position if you have humbled yourself and you've gotten ready. I would encourage you, start putting this whole armor on, start putting it on. And if you've done it before and kind of slacked off I want to encourage you, there's power in putting it on every day. And so that's enough for today, and I appreciate you staying with me on this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
