Every Christian is in the Battle
10/30 Reading Portions: 2 Kings 11-12; 2 Timothy 2; Hosea 3-4; Psalm 119:121-144
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
10/30 Reading Portions: 2 Kings 11-12; 2 Timothy 2; Hosea 3-4; Psalm 119:121-144
2 Timothy 2:3
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
SOLDIERS
You don’t have to go to military boot camp to endure hardships, train with discipline, and suffer evils in this world to understand what it means to be a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Life is a battlefield and true, biblical Christianity is spiritual warfare. Years ago, for several enlistments, I held up my hand, pledging “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Yet fighting for one’s country is a vague and abstract concept. I understood that when I served in the U.S. military. On D-Day at Omaha Beach, there are testimonies of those who were there, knowing as they faced the Nazis, many would not make it to the beach but, instead, would be gunned down as soon as the landing craft ramps opened. What would cause these young men to charge into that? Not country or constitution. Study after study has shown that they did it out of respect and appreciation for their commanding officer, and for the buddies charging in next to them. How much more are we to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters of faith, and most especially, for the Captain of salvation and the Commander of Yehovah’s host, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul tells young Timothy in the next verse that we do so since his aim, and ours…
…is to please the One who enlisted him.2 Timothy 2:4
The world is in, as John Bunyan would put it, a Holy War. The apostle tells us that we do not fight…
…against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12
Moreover, he tells us that…
…the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 2 Corinthians 10:4
We have the privilege of having been recruited into the heavenly army of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is for His exaltation we march, we fight, we live, and we lay down our lives. He has enlisted us by grace, equipped us with the Holy Spirit, and empowered us by His holy Word to engage in this holy war, one to which the Bible tells us, He has already won at Calvary’s cross; and one Day, He will ride in as the Faithful and True Witness to claim all that are His (Rev 19:11-16). Hallelujah! What a victorious Savior!