Soldier disciples
John 15:8-17 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. 9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
It’s Memorial Day, the day when we solemnly remember those who have paid the ultimate price, sacrificing their lives for ours. Those who have died fighting for our freedom, paying the ultimate price for those who may not even appreciate the price that they have paid. We take time to remember those who were the good soldiers; fighting for a cause they believed in to the point of death. Can you see the similarity in what Christ has done for you? Can you see that He paid the ultimate price to pay for your freedom from the eternal pain of sin? The One who created you, died to save you, to give his life for yours; I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10b).
The apostle Paul in his final letter to Timothy, uses the analogy of a soldier; Timothy must understand that the road as a disciple of Christ will be as a soldier for Christ. 2 Timothy 2:3 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. I am reading an incredibly powerful book, The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that goes into detail the call of discipleship that is placed by Christ on those he calls. Of the conscious act of making that commitment to follow His call. To place that effort in the act of obedience to what He lays on our heart. In this act of free will, is the heart of a disciple; a heart that desires to draw nearer to Christ in these acts of immediate obedience to what He calls us to do. This intimacy is found, cultivated, and continually sought in the life of a soldier, a disciple of Christ’s.
Do you claim the promises of Christ, but yet fail to live for Him? Do you in your mind see yourself in heaven since you signed a paper, or prayed a prayer? Do you have any evidences in your heart that something changed; is there evidences in your external of the internal change? Will you obey or delay that call He placed on you? Will you become a disciple of His even if it means to the point of death; dying to yourself and the false needs wrapped up in the ideal of sin from your enemy? Your enemy lurks behind your front lines placing doubt and false desire. A good soldier for Christ only seeks to please the One who enlisted him, who called him out to be a soldier for the heavenly army. Place your life’s focus, trust, and obedience in the commander of the heavenly army that will have assured victory over Satan and sin in the end; the beginning of eternal paradise for His soldiers.
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