After belting your waist with God’s truth (note that His truth holds everything together), God calls upon us to ensure that we have armed ourselves with “the breastplate of righteousness” (Eph. 6:14). A breastplate was designed to protect the center mass, particularly a soldier’s heart. If the enemy could penetrate there, all hope was lost. In order for our breastplate to do its job…

When you consider “the whole armor of God” with which the Christian is to arm himself, the first piece identified by Paul in Ephesians 6:14 is “the belt of truth” (ESV). The NKJV says, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth.” The NASB says, “…having belted your waist with truth.” The soldier’s belt truly held everything together. Without it, he could not engage. As Christians,…

After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples of Jesus took time to go fishing. However, John 21 tells us that they fished all night and “caught nothing” (21:4). These guys were professional fishermen (at least we know that Peter, James and John were). Maybe they were showing the other disciples their expertise in “how to fish.” But, that morning, they had nothing. Jesus appeared to them…

We sometimes wonder how individuals could reject Jesus, right to His face, when they were witnessing supernatural, mind-blowing power demonstrated from His hands. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (he’d been dead for four days), the Jews plotted to kill both Jesus and Lazarus (John 10:45-57; 12:9-11). Such amazing unbelief! How could they? Yet, if people could (and did) reject Jesus in the face…

How long had Israel been slaves in Egypt? Well, that depends on who you ask, but by the end of Exodus chapter 2, that generation of Israelites had not known any life except the one there in Egyptian slavery. Do you think they had ever “groaned because of their bondage” before Exodus 2:23? No doubt they regularly groaned and cried out to God because of…

We might think that facial recognition software is a rather new invention. And, in some respects, it might be, for purposes like police departments identifying suspects or for you to unlock your new phone. But, it’s actually been around for a really, really, really long time. 3,500 years ago, God commanded the Israelites not to use their facial recognition software—that is, the software that…

Most of us likely eat much better than the average person in other parts of the world. But, is it really all about what’s on the table? What if all we could bring to the table to eat was “herbs” or a “dry crust of bread”? That wouldn’t be very good, would it? Certainly, we would rather have a table full of festive dishes to fill…

Sometimes things happen and we want to know, “Why?” We look and search and dig and wonder and fret and worry about the “Why?” We get so desperate sometimes that we start to make up reasons and explanations in our minds to satisfy our search for “Why?” Oftentimes (and almost always) those reasons and explanations are not well-founded and cause us to settle our thoughts…