Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – 1 John 4-5
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 14:31-33
Jesus: Or imagine a king gearing up to go to war. Wouldn’t he begin by sitting down with his advisors to determine whether his 10,000 troops could defeat the opponent’s 20,000 troops? If not, he’ll send a peace delegation quickly and negotiate a peace treaty. In the same way, if you want to be My disciple, it will cost you everything. Don’t underestimate that cost!
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
I spent almost my whole career in the Army studying, thinking about, and planning for combat. That’s what the Army does. It’s purpose is to fight and win America’s wars. It doesn’t start them. It doesn’t want them. No soldier that I know enjoys going into combat. But when the country calls on its soldiers to fight for the freedoms we hold dear, they go. And my job as a medical planner was to figure out how to put the right medical support on the battlefield and at every step between the battle and a soldier’s home to make sure he or she got the best care possible.
Consequently, I know about planning to go to war. I worked hand in hand with the warfighters and understood their tactics intimately because I had to know how their tactics influenced the potential number of casualties both we and our enemies would experience. You see, Americans are one of few countries that extend mercy to our enemies once defeated. We tend to our enemies wounded in the same way we tend to our own wounded. It’s what the Geneva Conventions after the World Wars said we should do, but few countries carry out those concepts as well as the United States.
So my job took into account what the warfighters thought would happen in each phase of each battle and throughout the campaigns they planned both for our side and the enemies. It sounds like a daunting task and in some respects I guess it might be. But there are ways to determine what our capabilities really are and what the enemy’s capabilities are. Then you run all that information through different analyses tools and figure out if you can win and at what cost.
The good news for those who have never served, but who have loved ones or friends in the military, I never met a commander that wasn’t averse to losing soldiers in battle. No one I ever met wanted to see soldiers hurt or killed even though we all knew the possibility and sometimes the probability of casualties happening. But our mission, given to us by Congress and the President, was always to fight and win the war. And sometimes that meant we knew it might cost lives or severe injuries to do battle with the enemy. Our opponents often don’t cherish human life the way Americans do and so will fight very different kinds of warfare than us. We have to be prepared for those battles.
ISIS is a good example of the difference. While we can put a smart bomb through a window as Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom demonstrated, we sometimes have civilians caught in the fray because ISIS and terrorist groups like them will surround themselves with civilians to keep us from attacking. We never do. We keep our bases separate from the civilian populace partly for that reason. We never want to be accused of using civilians as shields.
But we take all those tactics of our enemies into account, too. We want to know the cost, both in dollars, in potential injuries, and in potential lives, enemy soldiers, friendly soldiers, and civilians before the first bullet ever leaves the barrel of a rifle. So people like me would spend days and weeks and months locked in vaults planning for all kinds of contingencies just in case something were to happen in some part of the world. The plans were never executed the way we wrote them, but they were always a good starting point rather than starting with a blank sheet of paper when the chips were down.
All that work in the Army reminds me every day of the war we fight in the spiritual world. There is a cost to serving in God’s Army. There will be battles fought when the odds seem insurmountable and losses will be heavy. Sometimes it may even appear as if we’ve lost the battle. But remember that wars are not about one battle. They are campaigns in which a series of battles lead to an ultimate conclusion with victory by one side.
I hope you are on the winning side. In the end there will only be one victor and God’s word has already announced who that will be. There is really no sense in wasting time fighting against Him. He’s already won. Future history is already recorded if that makes any sense. Every promise God makes happens and He promised victory for those that follow Him.
So what are you waiting for? Go tell someone about the wonder of God’s love. Yes it will cost a lot, everything you have and everything you will ever have. But is it worth the cost? You bet it is. Stay on the winning side. It’s worth it.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.