FIGHT OR FAIL

“—-endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”–2 Timothy 2:3   You don’t have to be a Christian very long before you realize that the Christian life is a battle-ground rather than a play-ground! We are in a spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:12) and the fight is fierce and non-stop. We fight or we fail.   I’ve been reading a summary of “The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu. It was recommended to me by my barber friend and I find it very interesting. It was written in the 6th century BC and is considered the definitive work on military strategies and tatics. I’m sure no expert on warfare, but I am very much aware of the fact that our nation and Christianity are under attack. The scary thing is that this isn’t obvious to most people. They are like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. Sad indeed!   There is no greater joy than being a Christian, but that doesn’t mean it is all fun and games. To turn the church into a fun house is a big mistake. Pretending all is well doesn’t change anything for the better. We are at war and the sooner we wake up to that fact the better.   There is no reason why we should be surprised or confused about this. We need not be ignorant of Satan’s devices (2 Cor. 2:11) and we have all the armor we need (Eph. 6:11-18) to be victorious, but we must awaken to the danger and get involved in the fray. We are not called to just sit back and take it, but rather to be pro-active. It’s time for folks to wake-up, get-up, and get going; to stop playing church and start getting serious about their responsibilities. We are on a God-given mission and the enemy is doing all he can to stop us. To be successful we must take up “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”(Eph. 6:17) and get in the battle. Regardless of the difficulties involved, we are called to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” We must fight or fail!   He who is fully surrendered to the Lord will never surrender to the enemy!