Take (with me) your share of the hardships and suffering
(which you are called to endure)
as a good first class soldier of Christ Jesus.
No soldier when in service gets
entangled in the enterprises of (civilian) life;
his aim is to satisfy and please
the one who enlisted him.
2 Timothy 2:4 Amplified Bible 

Paul called his young disciple to accept the sufferings of
association with Jesus,
to accept them as - not a good and noble Christian -
but as a "soldier of Christ Jesus."
 
We are in a war.

We live in a foreign land, conquered but still terrorized.
The enemy is defeated but he is on the loose.
He is an underground operation and we, the defenders of
the peace our Captain has secured.

Satan is powerless if we use our power,
but the problem is recognizing him.
He, the sneak, hides in evil shadows and
uses wrongdoings to separate us
- not only from each other but-
from God!

We get swallowed up in pains,
absorbed with wounds,
lost in lust for personal vindication.

And we are fallen soldiers, out of the ranks,
useless to the Captain . . .
often suffering from band-aid injuries
and treating them as an amputation!

If we understood this life as war - with an enemy attack waiting
at every bend in the road - we wouldn't be so touchy.

Always caught off guard and rarely prepared for battle,
we Believers wrestle and struggle with
the injustice and pain of it all.
Seldom do we see that
behind the strife and
underneath the bitterness
lies the laughing Lucifer.
He has used a human shield, in the disguise of a person
to spew his attack . . . to topple the warrior.

We are in the middle of a war.
The war is not to determine the winner but to
undergird the accomplished victory.
The war is not against our character or reputation.
Not about our hurt feelings or losses.
The war is launched to disrupt our bond to the Captain,
(through unforgiveness)
our restful relationship with God
from which all abundance flows
and out of which His own purpose is realized.

Though we can be wounded and even severely injured,
we are called to be "unentangled" with the affairs of this world,
Occupied -
not with the wars of earth nor even of the heavens -
but with the Glorious Ruler.
Engrossed with our Mighty Captain.
His pleasure, not ours.
His glory, not yours.
His plan, not mine.

We have a perfect Captain, already victorious.
His wishes, His pleasure are to be our life's highest joy
and our consuming interest.
Any skirmish, any wound that takes the mind and heart
from that one focus
is entanglement with the world.
Energy - and precious time -
poured out on strife and worries
is entanglement with the world.

Let us gaze long at our Captain in His quiet dignity
From quarrels and attacks,
He simply walked away . . .
Always and only absorbed with His Father's agenda,
He would not be . . . entangled.

Jesus let the strife be. He let the talkers talk.
He let the accusations fly.
Jesus concerned Himself - simply and totally -
with God's will
and God's orders . . .
splendid and utterly fascinating.
Plans too wonderful to stop for human folly
of fights and rights.

Though Jesus sometimes answered His accusers,
He did so on His own terms, not theirs . . .
often gave to them the grilling questions
instead of the answers they demanded.
He was never subject to their terms of arguing
and the debate ended when HE ended it.

" . . . they sought again to seize him,
but he escaped out of their hand.
And He (Jesus) went away again beyond the Jordan . . . ."
John 10:22-42 NKJ (John 7:25-31)

Entanglement . . . with situations and persons . . .
the struggle sure to defeat the soldier,
and certain to inflict open wounds
that require the tedious stitching
of forgiveness.

A "good first class soldier's"
code of unentanglement might be this:

I am not involved in any activities of mankind,
they have no reality.
I am not embroiled with any "human" quarrels,
they have no reality.
I am not entrapped in any worldly ambitions,
they have no reality.
I am not enmeshed with any "human" relationships,
they have no reality.

I am in Union with Christ, who alone IS Reality
and His Will, the only worthy focus.

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Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick