Universal Soldier“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.” (2 Timothy 2:3-4) In the 1992 Jean Claude Van Damme action movie Universal Soldier, American soldiers killed in Vietnam were reanimated by a top-secret U.S. Army laboratory to serve as near-perfect soldiers on covert missions. Although many of us are civilians, the Bible calls on us to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. In this day and age, difficult times are inevitable, and indeed times will come when we have to stand strictly by faith on the Word of God and nothing else, when we’ll have to speak and act as though what God says is true even when we can’t feel it or see it. There will be times in the furnace of affliction when everything looks terrible, when we realize that boot camp is a walk in the park and we must endure hardship as a good universal soldier. Although we’ve been redeemed from the curse of the law when Jesus died on the cross for us and there’s nothing the devil can do about it, he will challenge us every chance he gets. So many people hear the word of faith preached about healing, deliverance, restoration or prosperity and casually believe it but when tough times come, they give up and cave in faster than Osama Bin Hidin’. Living by faith is not just something we try on for size. It’s a lifestyle where we do it when it’s tough and when it’s easy. We do it, Just Do It with our Nike on all the time because we’re not doing it just to reap the benefits. We’re doing it because without faith it is impossible to please God, and God will reward those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). Things may get rough, but we’ll always come out on top if we don’t buy into the lies of the media or the psychological warfare of the enemy, if we endure hardship as a good soldier. Mel Gibson may tell us that We Were Soldiers, but God says that we are soldiers. If we refuse to give in and give up, if we refuse to faint and fade away, we’ll have the victory because the only defeated soldier is the one who won’t, or can’t endure.Copyright © 2003 Eddy Ministries. All rights reserved. Subscribe/Unsubscribe: eddyn@earthlink.net
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