Eph 6: 14Stand (command now) therefore, having your loins (seat of generative powers, intense emotions) girt about (definiteness of action, wrapped around) with truth (the unveiled reality-the basis of).
Each part of our body relates to certain functions of our soul and of our spirit life. Every part of the anatomy of the body has a spiritual as well as a soulish significance. The loins refer to the upper and lower abdominal regions, a vulnerable area.
We see in the book of Daniel the story of Belshazzar’s feast for a thousand of his lords. According to history, he had trained peacocks pulling trays of the most unusual delicacies ever seen. As they feasted on this night his kingdom fell, Belshazzar saw a hand write upon the wall.
Dan 5: 4They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. 5In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. 6Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.
We can see in this verse what the loins mean. They represent something significant where the emotions of an individual are involved.
1 John 3:17, “If you see your brother in need and shut up your bowels of compassion against him, how dwells the love of God in you?”
We are not to shut up the loins’ free flow of emotions; the loins are the center of our emotions.
When the children of Israel kept the first Passover they were to have their loins girded, and their staff in their hand. We cannot make the pilgrimage out of bondage until our emotions are under control—“Loins girded about with truth.” God has made a provision to counteract every contrary emotion that we could experience. Our emotions need to be girded with truth, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and as we allow Him to search our heart as our spirit is communing with Him the revelation He gives us will counteract any destructive emotions that we have been feeling.
Psalms 69:23, 24: May their eyes grow dim so that they cannot see, and make their loins shake continually. Pour out Thine indignation on them, and may Thy burning anger overtake them.
In this Psalm David was praying for judgment to come upon his enemies
Jeremiah 30:5–8: For thus says the Lord, “I have heard a sound of terror, of dread, and there is no peace. Ask now, and see, if a male can give birth. Why do I see very man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in childbirth? And why have all faces turned pale? Alas! for that day is great, there is none like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved from it “Why do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in childbirth?”
This prophecy is talking about the day of tribulation and asks, “Can a man give birth?” as though it were travail pains. In the Scriptures, the end-time manifestations of fear are likened unto travail. The terror which will come upon the world is described as travail upon a woman with child (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
Nahum 2: 1 The one who scatters has come up against you. Man the fortress, watch the road; strengthen your back (or “make strong your loins”), summon all your strength. Verse 10: She is emptied! Yes, she is desolate and waste! Hearts are melting and knees knocking! Also anguish is in the whole body (the literal meaning is, “anguish is in all the loin”), and all their faces are grown pale!”
When people are terrified, their emotional reaction is to grip their loins. We have emotional and spiritual reactions within various parts of our body. The stomach and bowels are seats of emotional manifestations.
When ministering in the Holy Spirit, through the gifts of the Spirit signs do appear for us in our body to help discern what is happening in the individual we are ministering to. These signs become significant as we go to the Scriptures and find what they originally meant.
The bowels and the stomach represent the seat of internal cleansing and of the creative life, both in natural usage and in the spirit.
The loins are the seat of all manifestations of intense emotions. We are to, Gird up the loins of your mind. 1 Peter 1:13.The part of the mind which is given to emotions must be girded. It is in the loins (the seat of all creative life and all manifestations of intense emotions) that we actually have a consciousness that sometimes exceeds what is in our minds. We have certain experiences where we are conscious of what is going on, but the real realization of it does not hit us until later. During some traumatic events our mind seems to be more protected, and then later our emotions become affected. The reality of it reaches the emotions and the feelings later. Often when something happens, although it doesn’t bother us at first, later it may really bother us
We must have protection against the satanic assault upon our emotions. Satan will come against the seat of our emotions, our loins.
The New Testament uses the word “bowels” instead of loins, which involves the same thing.
Philemon 7,. For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints (literally, “the bowels of the saints”) have been refreshed through you, brother. Verse 12: And I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart to you Verse 20: Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my bowels in Christ.
Philippians 1:8: For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the (bowels) affection of Christ Jesus
2:1 If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there be any consolation of love, if there be any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion
Col3: 12Put on (to clothe oneself, enter into the Spirit, to be filled with His attributes) therefore, as the elect (chosen of God, selected to minister the Spirit, select, chosen, beloved) of God, holy (“separated” ) and beloved (state brought about by the finished results of the action or process, to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly), bowels (the filling and moving of intense passion) of mercies (feeling of compassion with intent to act), kindness (opposite of severity), humbleness of mind (no confidence in self-God dependant thinking), meekness (dead to self), longsuffering (quality of spirit that rules soulish emotions)
We are to put on the bowels of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. The bowels are the seat of these particular emotions, and this is where we need protection.
As soldiers in the army of the Lord we need adequate defenses. The first area of need is our loins; it is the most vulnerable area, even more so than our minds.
A lot of People do things wrong because they have been wounded in their emotions, it is not the intent of their heart, and their thinking agrees that it is wrong. It is the heart that is wounded and not the mind. It is in this area that people are defeated.
The armor of the Lord protects our emotions; our loins are to be girded with truth. This is not just talking about any truth. Divine truth is the only thing that has the power to control the emotions. If someone is emotionally upset, it is not enough to just sit down with them and talk about the facts. The Holy Spirit must reveal the truth, the big picture, the reality lying at the basis of. We need to see the will of God for our lives, how He can turn it around for our good, to see it in the light of eternity.
It is the expression of truth that sets us free. When God reveals the answer, when He shines in our heart, when we see the light, we need to walk in that light. We need to act on it immediately and determine to practice the truth revealed daily until it is written upon our heart, and becomes our response. We need to be concerned about not just things from without that would ensnare us, but from emotions within that would entrap us. When God speaks a word to our heart, that word becomes a liberating force within us to set us free from the intense emotions which are capable of destroying us.
The enemy comes with his fiery darts, those burning lies that come until we are not able to lay hold of the truth; we are not able to see with God’s eyes, we do not see the real picture of how things are.
The real problems come through deception, a lie, or some intense experience in the emotional life. When we are emotionally disturbed most of the things we do are not generated by the reasoning of our mind. There is no reasonableness in what many people do. They act because they are involved emotionally. When our emotions are not under the influence of The Spirit of God we make wrong decisions .Our loins—the seat of creative life, the seat of all emotions, of internal cleansing-are the most vulnerable part of our being, where the soul life itself can become highly destructive.
We need to understand where the soul is seated. Our emotions are more related to our soul than our mind. We are a three part being, spirit, soul, and body. Each has a consciousness. There is a consciousness based on the physical senses, a consciousness based upon the soul life, and a consciousness based upon the spirit.
Our soul interprets what our spirit perceives and what our physical senses tell us. Our spirit can be conscious of things we are not conscious of emotionally, of things that we cannot see or feel through our body.
Instead of allowing ourselves to become a victim of some disturbing emotion or some lie of the enemy, our loins need to be girded with the truth. We need to find out from the Lord what reality is. God must reveal to us what He thinks about it. Then we will find ourselves able to handle things which otherwise would be destructive emotionally.
When God gives us a word and it is confirmed to us, then we can gird ourselves with the truth in our emotional life. The moment we have a word from God and faith in that word is conceived in our spirit, we will find that we do not react emotionally if the circumstances appear different. We have faith in a truth that exceeds our reason that exceeds the appearance of the situation. It is a word from God, and the truth of that word girds us about. Now we can walk exactly the way we are suppose to walk before the Lord.
We need to be able to look at people in the Spirit, and see the will of God for them. Once God reveals something about someone then we are not regulated by any present manifestation of defeat or victory in the person’s life. That has nothing to do with our conclusion; our conclusions are God’s conclusions. His truth girds us; His truth is the protection for us emotionally. If we know we are in the will of God, then we can go through all kinds of troubles and it doesn’t matter because we know the truth. It is the protection that girds us. Sometimes it takes awhile for us to understand these things.
When emotions like loneliness, anger, jealousy, depression, frustration, fear or any other contrary emotion hits us. Then we must find out from the Lord what we are to do about it, and act accordingly. It may be a lie and an illusion. If Satan has had access to hit us, he will always try and hit us below the belt. He hits us in the area of the loins. He tries to paralyze us by hitting us in the area of the loins, and that is why this piece of armor is designed for that area. Our emotions will have to be controlled or protected so that they are not vulnerable. The only way we can protect ourselves is with the divine truth. It will solve these problems again and again.
The enemy always looks for areas of emotional vulnerability. We cannot be moved by what other people say about us or what they tell us we should do; we have to be led by the Spirit. When we are being led by the Lord, then we can gird our emotions with the truth.
Of all of the ways the enemy could come against us, we should be alerted to these wounds the most, if the enemy can get to our emotions he can disable us. Our protection is in the truth that God brings to our heart. Our protection is not our truth, but God’s truth. It is a word from the Lord that enables us to walk in the Spirit.
When we learn how to meditate upon the word of God day and night, we are storing the word in our hearts. An anointing will come upon our memory banks where the word is buried. Like an archive, we are a literal Fort Knox after we have stored the word in our heart. More precious than gold, is the word in our heart.
When our heart is set to walk with God the Holy Spirit will bring to our minds the word we need so that we can stand in the evil day. The sword of the Spirit can be used in battle against principalities, against the powers, just like Jesus Himself drew out the Word in the wilderness encounter. He said to Satan, It is written; it is written.
We need to hide the word in our heart, so that we might not sin against God! It is an antidote to the poison of sin that is in our very bloodstream and nature. It counteracts all the things that Satan would bring against us. It becomes not only an aggressive weapon but it becomes something that surrounds us.
His Word and His name are like a high tower, like a shield and buckler. Our faith in that Word can turn aside all the fiery darts of the wicked one. By the Word, we have protection from those things that would penetrate into our heart to destroy us. To put our confidence wholly in the Word of God is the most important thing we can ever do. Nothing is more important than to believe His Word; it is synonymous with believing on Christ. If we believe the Word, we have to believe all that it represents about the Lord.
The pieces of armor are named; so that we know where each piece is suppose to go. The loins are the seat of our emotions, so we must have the truth of God’s Word to gird us.