Original Entry:
December 14, 2011
McMinnville, OR
For it is commendable if a man bears up under the
pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. 1 Peter 2:19
In a speech to cadets
at the US Army Military Academy, General Douglas Mac Arthur in 1962 said, “The
soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious
training-sacrifice. However humble the incidents of war may be, the soldier who
is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest
development of mankind... The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace,
for he must suffer and year the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in
our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, the wisest of all philosophers: ‘only
the dead have seen the end of war.’”
The soldier battles
the unjust tyrannies of this world. The man battles the same for his wife and
children. A man is the first up, last to bed, statistically is the first to
die. He willingly sacrifices his life
for those he loves.
“For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of
unjust suffering because he is conscious of God” (1 Peter 2:19).
The man who is “conscious of God” is aware that a man
must sacrifice his life on behalf of the one’s he leads. As Mac Arthur said a
man is, “required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.
Sacrifice is the fruit of the man who is God conscious. Selfishness is the
fruit of the man who is self conscious.
Being deeply aware of
his God a man willingly sacrifices his life for others. This is a rare quality
in the soft American church.
But we are men of God. Men can take it. Men are the grunts in the battlefield of
life. Men are the walking wounded of
families. Men are proud to make the
sacrifice for the family he loves so much.
