“You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” 1Tim.2:3 NKJV

Paul here compares Timothy (and thus all of us Christians) with a “good soldier”. And he goes on to say that the thing that makes a soldier a “good” soldier is that he endures hardship.

What does a good soldier look like? A good soldier is one who does what he is told by his commanding officer. This is especially true during times of war, on the battlefield good soldiers do what they are told to do without questioning orders. Without this chaos will ensue. In short a good soldier is an obedient soldier. In war time that obedience requires bravery and those who refuse orders are just the opposite, they are cowards.

And as you can imagine during times or war for a soldier to alway do what he is told is going to be hard and require some hardship on his part. Sometimes a lot of hardship, sometimes unspeakable hardship. And it is expected that he should endure all of these hardships as a good soldier.

I have become fascinated with the word “endure” and all that it means to us Christians. 

In the developed countries there is not a whole lot that we must endure as Christians. Yeah, some hardships but lets face it compared to the undeveloped countries we have it pretty easy. We have food, clothing and a warm dry safe place to sleep. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters do not have these luxuries available to them all of the time.

Living a life of prosperity and comfort has its draw backs. We become weak spiritually. We don’t suffer the hardships that our fellow brothers and sister suffer in the undeveloped world. Their hardships tries their faith and makes them stronger. Our comforts make us… well, comfortable and weak, we don’t want to be made uncomfortable. We certainly don’t want to suffer. Well I guess nobody wants that, right?

So what is the danger that we face as affluent Christians? It is simple, we don’t want to get in the war zone. We don’t want to fight battles. We don’t want the hardship associated with being a good soldier. We don’t want to be told what to do. We don’t want to obey our supreme Commander. We just want to be left alone and be comfortable. And we want our little pleasures.

Jesus said is was impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Impossible? Really? Well He goes on to say that with God all thing are possible. So He has made a way for all of us. 

Why so hard then for the rich? They don’t won’t to give up their little pleasures. Pleasures are pleasurable, we love them and we want to keep them if at all possible.

Hey! I got an idea, lets all go join the Army! yeah! Just think about it, first there is basic training where a sergeant yells at us to get up at 4 in the morning and go out and run 10 miles in the rain.  And then have him yell at us because we didn’t address him as “sir” correctly. After boot camp they will send us out to some far away land and fight some useless war that our useless politicians conjured up so their war material buddies can enrich themselves. Now our new sergeant tells us to get up out of the ditch, grab our rifles and run across no mans land with machine guns blazing straight at us and shoot and kill the enemy. What fun!

What sounds better to us is this, go to church, sing praise songs over and over until we get that fuzzy feeling, socialize with our Christians friends and go home and watch football. And watching our favorite team lose, again! Now that is what I call enduring hardship.

You would probably tell me that if Jesus put you in a situation where you had to endure hardship that you would endure it. We all like to think that we are good soldiers. We certainly are no cowards, that is for sure. But what happens to you when you are faced with doing battle with Satan and his demons and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places? What I mean is what happens to you when you are tempted to sin?

I know what your thinking. You think I don’t know? You don’t think I have been there, done that? You are sadly mistaken. This is what you are thinking, “ that is a very minor thing you are talking about, I have sinned this way 1000 times before, so what if it is 1001. It is no big deal, it is a nothing burger. If Christ asked me to fight a real big fight I would be there for Him. I would be that brave soldier. And besides that He has promised to forgive me.” Is that not what you are thinking?

This is what’s happening when you are tempted to sin, you are now in a battle with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. It is you verses them. You are now faced with an overwhelming force that is way more than you can possibly handle. The odds are against you that you are going to win this battle. This is a big deal. This is big in heavens eyes. The eyes of your Commanding Officer and his angels are watching to see who is going to come out the winner. You have a big audience dude I suggest to don’t screw this up. It is like two heavy weight boxers at Madison Square Garden in front of a sell out crowd. Are you now going to wimp out? Again?

So you see, it is our comfortable lifestyles that are working against us. We just don’t want to fight. We are a bunch of spiritual weenies. We are cowards. We step out of the ring and cry out to the crowd, “no mas”. And now do you see why Jesus said that it was nearly impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

It is nearly impossible for you to win out against that sin that so easily besets you. That little sin has you by the kahunas, you just as well admit it. You are not so strong after all. I am sorry but you are also not a good soldier, you have failed to endure the hardship. Get real.

Of course there is answers to all this but I am not going to tell you, not in this post, sorry but I am at 1000 words so I have to go. Figure it out yourself this is not rocket science. This is Christianity 101.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may he lift up his face on you and be gracious to you, may he lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.