2 Timothy 2:3-4
Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.
Paul describes the mature Christian as a soldier, not a retired solider, but as a soldier in active duty. On the road of following the Lord, you can't say, "I used to serve the Lord with great zeal, but now I can retire and rest." In the Lord's army, there is never a day to retire. No matter how young or how old you are, you need to be in the Lord, and in every second, every minute be a good solider of Christ. Here are the qualities of a good soldier:
First, there is a resolve to accept suffering. When a person enters the army, he is never thinking that he is going there to have fun. To be a soldier is to receive hard rigorous training. That's why when I entered the army boot camp, the moment I stepped in the door I saw a field of yellow sand, without even a single tree in sight. In the first day of class, the class leader laughed at us saying, "You ordinary citizens, afraid of the sun and afraid of hardships, confused about even turning right and left, what kind of war can you fight?" Even though ordinary citizens can be in the army, they lack the qualities of a soldier, that's why they need rigorous training. The goal is to turn an ordinary citizen into a real soldier who can fight in a war. In the same way, God is training and shaping us in the spiritual army. The purpose is to put us in difficult situations so that the spiritual life can become more mature. Thus when faced with trials and sufferings, may the Lord help us not to complain or try to escape. We need to depend on the Lord willingly and gladly to be trained and shaped to become a good soldier of the Lord, and not be a deserting soldier.
Next, the quality of a good solider is to "not get entangled in worldly affairs in order to please the one who called him to be a soldier". The good solider is someone who definitely understands how to obey. In the army, it is "one command, one action". The moment the command comes, everything else needs to be dropped, and everything is focused on carrying out the command. I remember when I was preparing to enter the army, I especially requested to serve as the choir director so that before I go I can lead a grand hymn during the Sunday worship. I didn't expect that the enlistment call came so soon, informing me to report to the camp on that Saturday. At that time, my heart truly was filled with discontent because I was only short by one day. But a command is a command. At that moment, the Lord lets me understand the meaning of this verse in the Bible. To be a good solider of Christ, we need in the same way to put away the sins and burdens that easily entangles us. The goal is to please the Lord. To not let the worldly affairs entangle us is not saying that we need to lay down our responsibilities in the world or in our work, but it is saying that we should not to let the things of the world bind us so we can't serve God. To be a good solider of Christ is that no matter what the circumstances are in life, we resolve to live for the Lord.
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