Matthew 16:24-26 “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Matthew 6:31-33 “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
II Timothy 2:3-4 “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good solider of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a solider.”
I recently completed “44 Days of Faith and Valor: A Warrior’s Daily Devotional” by Philippines National Police Lieutenant General Cesar Hawthorne R. Binag. I had met PLTGen Binag a few months ago at the Spiritual Leadership Conference Asia, and was inspired by his massive cultural impact on the public safety community in the Philippines by infusing a Christian foundation into their core. His devotional was wonderful!
One of the devotions precisely matches the theme from last week (see the following link), which is worth amplifying with this additional context.
Binag writes the following:
“As soldiers, dutiful obedience should be second nature to us. It’s ironic that some of us Christians in the military or police don’t have a problem with obeying our (human) officers and commanders; yet we refuse to obey God. We obey our commanders because they can punish us – make us do push-ups or cancel our VOCO passes which allow us to go outside the camp for leisure and other reasons.”
His conclusion is spot on:
“How low, therefore, is our view of God; and how little our respect for Him is when we fear our officers more than we fear Him: when we would not dare disobey our officer’s orders but would blatantly disobey His Word and instructions in the Bible.”
Amen! Whether we are an officer, a commander, or a good soldier of Jesus Christ, we must demonstrate our faith, respect, and appreciation by following Him FIRST!
PLEASE PRAY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANS TO SERVE OUR HEAVENLY COMMANDER WITH DUTIFUL OBEDIENCE AND RESPECT. We must!
