a good soldier of Jesus Christ

 



 2Timothy 2:3-4 

You therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man when in service gets involved with wars and entangles himself with the affairs of this life; his aim is that he may please and satisfy Him who hath chosen and enlisted him to be a soldier.

If your mind is on the things of God then all these things in life are brought before God in prayer, and you will consider the spiritual dimension of the problem, and start seeing the matter differently.

I need to pray at all times, I need to get the word in me daily, but also I can be sidetracked with gardening and shopping and jobs around the house. I can still pray when working. It takes less than thirty minutes a day, to read the whole Bible in a year, and surely most people can find thirty minutes out of their busy time to spend with God in the word.

There are also lots of Christian testimony and teaching books that can also encourage us by the example of others. Here are some names of past saints of God who can be a great encouragement when we read the exploits they did for God. (John Bunyan, Adam Clarke, Charles G. Finney, George Muller, John Flavel, George Fox, D. L. Moody, John Owen, C. H. Spurgeon, John Wesley and Martin Luther) to name just a few.

Prayer: Thank you our loving Heavenly Father for showing us that our life should not always be easy, but also we should endure hardship so that your perfect plan may be achieved, that your will is done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

2Ti 2:1-26  

So, my son, throw yourself into this work for Christ. 
Pass on what you heard from me--the whole congregation saying Amen!--to reliable leaders who are competent to teach others. 
When the going gets rough, take it on the chin with the rest of us, the way Jesus did. 
A soldier on duty doesn't get caught up in making deals at the marketplace. He concentrates on carrying out orders. 
An athlete who refuses to play by the rules will never get anywhere. 
It's the diligent farmer who gets the produce. 
Think it over. God will make it all plain. 
Fix this picture firmly in your mind: Jesus, descended from the line of David, raised from the dead. It's what you've heard from me all along. 
It's what I'm sitting in jail for right now--but God's Word isn't in jail! 
That's why I stick it out here--so that everyone God calls will get in on the salvation of Christ in all its glory. 
This is a sure thing: If we die with him, we'll live with him; 
If we stick it out with him, we'll rule with him; If we turn our backs on him, he'll turn his back on us;  If we give up on him, he does not give up-- for there's no way he can be false to himself. 
Repeat these basic essentials over and over to God's people. Warn them before God against pious nitpicking, which chips away at the faith. It just wears everyone out. 
Concentrate on doing your best for God, work you won't be ashamed of, laying out the truth plain and simple. 
Stay clear of pious talk that is only talk. Words are not mere words, you know. If they're not backed by a godly life, 
they accumulate as poison in the soul. Hymenaeus and Philetus are examples, 
throwing believers off stride and missing the truth by a mile by saying the resurrection is over and done with. 
Meanwhile, God's firm foundation is as firm as ever, these sentences engraved on the stones: GOD KNOWS WHO BELONGS TO HIM. SPURN EVIL, ALL YOU WHO NAME GOD AS GOD. 
In a well-furnished kitchen there are not only crystal goblets and silver platters, but waste cans and compost buckets--some containers used to serve fine meals, others to take out the garbage. 
Become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing. 
Run away from infantile indulgence. Run after mature righteousness--faith, love, peace--joining those who are in honest and serious prayer before God. 
Refuse to get involved in inane discussions; they always end up in fights. 
God's servant must not be argumentative, but a gentle listener and a teacher who keeps cool, 
working firmly but patiently with those who refuse to obey. You never know how or when God might sober them up with a change of heart and a turning to the truth, 
enabling them to escape the Devil's trap, where they are caught and held captive, forced to run his errands. 

2 Timothy 2:26     BARNES COMMENTARIES  SAYS........................And that they may recover themselves - Margin, “awake.” The word which is rendered “recover” in the text, and “awake” in the margin -  ἀνανήψωσιν  ananēpsōsin - occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It properly means, to become sober again, as from inebriation; to awake from a deep sleep, and then, to come to a right mind, as one does who is aroused from a state of inebriety, or from sleep. The representation in this part of the verse implies that, while under the influence of error, they were like a man intoxicated, or like one in deep slumber. From this state they were to be roused as one is from sleep, or as a man is recovered from the stupor and dullness of intoxication.
Out of the snare of the devil - The snare which the devil has spread for them, and in which they have become entangled. There is a little confusion of metaphor here, since, in the first part of the verse, they are represented as asleep, or intoxicated; and, here, as taken in a snare. Yet the general idea is clear. In one part of the verse, the influence of error is represented as producing sleep, or stupor; in the other, as being taken in a snare, or net; and, in both, the idea is, that an effort was to be made that they might be rescued from this perilous condition.
Who are taken captive by him at his will - Margin, “alive.” The Greek word means, properly, to take alive; and then, to take captive, to win over Luk_5:10; and then, to ensnare, or seduce. Here it means that they had been ensnared by the arts of Satan “unto (εἰς  eis) his will;” that is, they were so influenced by him, that they complied with his will. Another interpretation of this passage should be mentioned here, by which it is proposed to avoid the incongruousness of the metaphor of “awaking” one from a “snare.” It is adopted by Doddridge, and is suggested also by Burder, as quoted by Rosenmuller, “A. u. n. Morgenland.” According to this, the reference is to an artifice of fowlers, to scatter seeds impregnated with some intoxicating drugs, intended to lay birds asleep, that they may draw the snare over them more securely. There can be no doubt that such arts were practiced, and it is possible that Paul may have alluded to it. Whatever is the allusion, the general idea is clear. It is an affecting representation of those who have fallen into error. They are in a deep slumber. They are as if under the fatal influence of some stupefying potion. They are like birds taken alive in this state, and at the mercy of the fowler. They will remain in this condition, unless they shall be roused by the mercy of God; and it is the business of the ministers of religion to carry to them that gospel call, which God is accustomed to bless in showing them their danger. That message should be continually sounded in the ears of the sinner, with the prayer and the hope that God will make it the means of arousing him to seek his salvation.