Perhaps everyone who reads this article has had some taste of a set of circumstances that caused him to wonder if he could ever get through them victoriously, or win over them.
Soldiers or other military personnel at war know very well the taste of fear that momentarily or for longer periods makes them doubt their capacity to win over or perhaps to survive a what they see coming towards them.
I have heard of war being defined as long periods of “boredom interspersed with times of intense fear.”
But get through the fear they must, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of those around them or those for whom they are responsible.
The Christian too, therefore, charged to “continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his (or her) life’s end” as is declared in Baptism, should experience something of this in his normal course of discipleship.
It must be our ever-recurring obligation to win through the various circumstances that would threaten the stability of our relationship with Christ, making courageous and well-executed forays into enemy territory for the sake of His Name and for the love of His brethren, thereby being exposed to risk of capture or injury from the spiritual enemy.
Such risks can be involved in the circumstances of spiritual direction or counsel, in ministry or chaplaincy work in prisons, hospitals and schools, or even in our day to day relationships in the Body of Christ, as well as in our explicit witness as Christians in the world.
It is revealed to us that we live as the citizens of overlapping ages, the age of this world of human history on the one hand, and the new age of the appearance of Christ on the other.
From the time of the Incarnation, the arrival of “God in man made manifest” as a well-known hymn puts it, the new age of the appearance of Christ has been breaking into human history, and when we walk by faith rather than by sight, we are exercising our citizenship of the new age already. Mark 13: 1-8 as well as Daniel 12: 1-3 point to a time of trouble and wars and rumours of wars, and Jesus says that what we perceive is still but the beginning of the birth-pangs of the new thing breaking into human history.
To win through as a soldier of Christ is a high-stakes operation. We are not to be led astray by those who lead falsely in His name or by our worldly fears, and we are to bear in mind that the real truth of a thing may not always lie with those who start the shouting. As the well-known prayer puts it, it is not the beginning of a matter, but the continuing of the same “until it be throughly finished”, that yields the true glory.
We are to be of those who keep our mind’s eye firmly fixed upon the thorough finishing of any matter, and especially upon that end that is man’s true goal. The Church must be absolutely clear that this goal is entirely distinct from any goals of mankind’s own devising (such as the United Nations’ Millennium Goals, for example).
So we may and should be concerned about caring for the earth’s environment, but when it is implied that God Himself either had no part in forming our environment or especially has no intention or ability to sustain it, in spite of our misuses of it, then the expression of our concerns must begin to diverge from the concerns of other “Greens”, because what is starting to be implied here is that God in one way or another, through being non-existent or being irrelevant, must be left out. We may and should be concerned about the amelioration of poverty both in our society and in the world at large, and particularly among ourselves in the Body of Christ. However, we of all people should not forget, as others do, that God has a programme for the elimination of poverty.
The true amelioration of poverty will involve measures other than just trying to throw money at people, if we get things right, and I consider, if we get nearer God’s programme in the matter. For we are to be of those who keep our mind’s eye firmly fixed upon that end that is man’s true goal, as expressed simply in the well-known words, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Hebrews 10:11-25 shows us that such a great lifetime challenge to us as to win through as a soldier of Christ, a challenge which may naturally give us the taste of fear, may and must be undertaken with confidence.
By the overflowing love of God, Christ has offered for all time His single sacrifice for sins, and we therefore have confidence to enter the heavenly sanctuary by the blood of Jesus. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” Our hearts are sprinkled clean from any bad conscience and from the fears that make us waver, and our very baptism is a sign of this to us. Within this true sanctuary we have a great priest over the house of God, Jesus Himself making intercession for us.
Therefore we must keep on with the challenge of continuing as Christ’s faithful soldier and servant to life’s end and never give up, because we have the resources to meet the challenge, even if with injury at times, and to prevail.
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