SOLDIERs OF CHRIST

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II Timothy - 2:3-4 "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier."

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2 Timothy - 2:3-4 "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier."
Endure hardship

Paul states we must endure hardship has a lot of meaning to it that deserves some thought. Most people would generally agree that serving as a soldier during wartime is no fun to say the least. Being a soldier during a time of war must be a difficult thing to deal with. Back in the days of Christ, soldiers often went without water, food, sleep, medical treatment, seeing their family, not to mention other unimaginable hardships.

Soldier of Jesus Christ

As with all structured military units, soldiers are instructed to obey their commanding officers and follow orders. While Jesus is ultimately our Commanding Officer, He will not force His soldiers to obey His orders or accept His missions. Just as with our salvation, we are given free will to make a choice.

Many times during Christ’s life on earth, He told His followers that He did only as He saw His Father do in heaven. He was not a rebel or Lone Ranger that tried doing things on His own.

This is why He called us to serve Him through the Church. We are called to be members of His Body in the Church. His Churches are our Spiritual Boot Camps!

In this world we can only serve one master. We can serve our Heavenly Father or we can serve Satan. The Bible tells us this in John 8:42-47. There is no neutral ground in Spiritual Warfare. You either serve Christ or you serve Satan.

Engaged in warfare

Satan was made so perfect, so beautiful, so knowledgeable that he became self-centered instead of God centered. This is when God found unrighteousness within him and cast him out of heaven. Since then, the devil has been striking out at God’s people.

He must hate us because we remind him of God. God tells us in Genesis that He made us in His own image. Maybe the devil knows that he can never defeat God, so the next best thing is to destroy His creations by fighting to keep them from salvation.

The focus of our consideration here has to be that our war is not of the flesh but the spirit. This means that yelling, punching, kicking or taking other fleshly actions will only hurt our cause.

Our only enemy in this war is the devil and his band of demons. Every other person on this earth has a spirit that God wants saved. Our weapons in this war are prayer, fasting, love and the Word of God.

Entangles himself

We as Christians and soldiers defeat ourselves. This part of the passage reads, “…No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life…” Read the end of that section again..."this life"

Other than serving our Lord & Savior, what else in this life matters? I would fear to see a true survey of how many people actually put the glorification of Christ as #1 on their list.

We claim to be Christians, but do we really act like it? The truth is that the vast majority of us are so consumed by things of this life that we forget about our spiritual life. Things like Sports, TV, Jobs, Possessions, Money, Music, Dating, Games, Entertainment, Education, Hobbies, have become our idols. These are the things of this world that we have been distracted with. By no means is this small list exhaustive.

Our enemy is trying to distract us with the affairs of this life. Let’s face it, most of our top priorities are likely things such as our wealth, education, social status, success and/or personal gratification.

We are living for the here and now when we should have an eternal perspective. Other than the spreading of the Gospel and growing in Christ, nothing else really matters in this life.

The awards, the money, the degrees, unless they are used to glorify out Lord, are a waste our attention and the life that God has given us. They are prideful self-centered webs that Satan seeks to entangle us in, and he is usually successful. We ourselves cannot untangle the mess that we are in, only by relying and focusing on God can we get out of it. Getting untangled is not a one-time event but rather a lifelong battle.

Please our Commander

As Soldiers of Christ, we need to focus first on pleasing the One that enlisted us in the fight. This is our Commander, Lord Jesus.

We are in His army, and He has bought and paid for our lives with His own blood. As such, our lives should be dedicated to serving and following Him.

Soldiers in Christ’s army should not worry about these types of things. Once we are assured of the authenticity of the instructions as coming from our Commander, we can rest assured that they will lead to His glory in some way, even if we cannot understand how at the time.

we as Soldiers of Christ need to understand how we receive our instructions from our Commander. Otherwise, how can we follow His orders if we do not receive the orders? Is it possible to please our Commander without following His instructions?

First, we need to be certain that we know our Commander and have a personal relationship with Him. Secondly, we need to understand how to know when we are truly receiving His directions for us. Last, we need to have the strength, determination and the courage to carry out these instructions in a manner worthy of service to Him. This is how we will please Him.

All directions and instructions must be tested to keep us on the right path.

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