Soldier of The Cross, are you aware of your thoughts?     Do they line up with His Word?  Until you allow the Lord to get hold of your thought life, you are an open field for the enemy.  He can shoot thoughts against others, thoughts against you and thoughts against the Lord.    Those who can be used of Him are eager to yield up their faculties to Him.  They are eager to be filled and overflowing with the Holy Spirit.  They are eager to be changed.  They are eager to see the lost come to Christ.    The thought life must be in line with His word and His Kingdom.    This is a conscious decision.  The mouth, the countenance and the thought life are tightly linked.     Yield to the Lover of Your Soul. Tell Him you want to obey in the area of the thought life.  Tell Him aloud.

   Alas, Lord God! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your out-stretched arm!  There is nothing too hard or too wonderful for You -                                     Jeremiah 32:17    Soldier of The Cross, you have crossed The Line.  You have decided to give Him your all. You have made a deliberate decision to agree with His Word.  You long to be filled with the Spirit.    You are telling Him in Prayer that He can have you completely and that you want to be more responsive to Him each day.    This means that you must look for Him to go places that are unknown to you.  It means that He will respond to your availability.  It means that you must be ready for anything and that you must deliberately exercise vigilance.     Those who are wiling to let the Lord lead them are those who dwell in the Sabbath Rest.  They are calm in the midst of the enemy's tornadic swirl.  Rivers of Living Water issue forth from them. They are monuments to the Grace and healing power of God.    We do not have the capacity to name all the things God could and should do in our hearts.  We can not explain to Him how He should make his own likeness in us.  In fact doing so is dangerous.  But we do need to ask to see the things that are hidden.  We need to stand on Jeremiah 33:3 and call to Him, expecting Him to answer - to show us the great and mighty things that we know not.    Soldier, you must tell Him you are available.  you must tell Him daily.  And you must tell him aloud.

   Those who are His have added responsibilities.     One of the most beautiful children's' songs is the one that says "Oh Be Careful Little Tongue What You Say. . ."     It isn't always what you say, but how you say it.  Mark tells us that it is the thing that issues forth from a man's mouth that defiles him.  and, so it is.     Soldier of The Cross, there will always be those who will want to suck you in to gossip or worse.  The intent of the enemy is to have you repeat the thing you have heard, with emotion,  and with more exaggeration.     You must understand that you are a Child of The King.  You have the Indwelling Holy Spirit, and you have the Power to abstain from gossip, slander and verbal assassination.     He who went to the Cross for you has asked you to yield to him completely.  He wants your thoughts, your body, and your mouth.  He wants your time and your goals.      He is preparing a Place for you because His Love for you is so great, you can not even begin to understand it.     The mouth is the indicator of the Presence of The Holy Spirit.  Know that you are being recorded.  For all eternity.  Make sure you consider that when you stand before Him, your words will be played back to you, unless there has been confession  and repentance.     Soldier, please take heed;  watch your tongue.

   The Crossing of The Line sets the Soldier of The Cross apart from other Christians.     There are those who have decided to leave this world behind.  They don't look strange, nor do they abandon practical daily activities.  These Believers have simply decided that God's Word is true.  They have made the decision that their lives no longer belong to themselves, but to the Lord.    These Christians have goals that are eternal.  They pray in agreement with the request that the body be daily yielded up as a living sacrifice.  They agree with God about the mouth.  They agree with God about time.     These Servants are faithful and devoted to the Body of Christ.  They are quick to visit prisons, the ill and the elderly.    Their eyes pour out love, because they are full of God's Word and are walking in the Light.    Their money belongs to the Lord.  The things they buy with that money belongs to the Lord. Their families belong to the Lord.  Their reputations belong to the Lord.    When the Lord allows devastating things, they thank Him, even though they feel weak and shaky.  They have decided to trust Him, no matter what.    They are not perfect.    But, they have crossed The Line.  

There are many reasons we are told to live as though He were coming for us immediately. Taking hold of the reality means making the conscious decision to move without baggage. It means a heightened awareness of the lost. It means a different use of time. One of the most important things in awaiting His coming is, living in the moment. It is easy to live in constant distraction. We are pulled this way and that, and we live in a fallen world that screams for our attention. The flesh is spoiled and reactionary, demanding attention and promoting its cravings. The enemy is constantly lurking, conniving and hurling flaming arrows. Soldier of The Cross, the time must be redeemed as we pass through it. What redeems the time? Obedience. When we tell the Lord He can have our lives completely, the heart is open and available to His Presence, His Word and His Will. Heaven becomes more visible that the things we touch with our hands. He is free to Love through us because we are not frayed from trying to solve everything. We are able to refuse the urgent in order to yield to the important. He said He would lead us with His eyes. And, so He will.

Soldier of The Cross, there is no time for wound-licking, whining or attention-getting. The battle is in the mind. You must allow Him to use all your faculties, all your time. If you are passive or careless, your mind will automatically revert to pruning the flesh in one way or another. We have no time for that. There are poor. There are dying. There are the ill. There are the lost. How are your hours spent? Those watching you must be able to see that you are living as though the Lord were going to come in a few hours or a few minutes. It is hard for the flesh, but not for the Spirit. Lower your head and plunge into freedom. He who is Lord is able to make the way. Rest in and on His Lordship. No Lordship, no Lord.

     Serving the Lord means thinking of Him first, His agenda first and His Body first.      Soldier of The Cross, He delights in you.  He has said that His heart is ravished when you think of Him.  He gave His life for your salvation and freedom, and He is accutely aware of your thoughts, discomforts and circumstances.      God has designed you to love Him and to serve Him.  He has designed you so that the best for you is in  subitting to Him.       He has not left you wihout instruction and He has not left you without provision.  He who is preparing a Place for you is One who takes pleasure in every act of obedience.  Every thought of obedience.      Soldier of The Cross, make sure you take time to gaze upon Him.  If you race to Him each day and hastily unload a bundle of needs, you will not be satisfied with Him.       You are so precious to Him - is He enough for you?

The Lord never asks you to do the possible.

He is the God of the impossible.

Soldier of The Cross, make sure you do not fall into the trap of evaluating the job God has given you. You do not have that capacity.

He has called us to follow Him no matter what- He has not called us to follow according to our limited concepts or experiences.

Those who are His are always on the cusp of an infinite frontier. There is no limit to what He can do.

Soldier, tell Him He can do anything with your life. With your time. With your faculties.

Invest in eternity.

There is nothing else.

Live them to the fullest. That is, according to God's Word.

Soldier of The Cross, putting aside pettiness is the result of a decision. The decision leads to the discipline of the mind.

One godly decision leads to another. When the obedient pattern begins to be established, there is release from the tentacles that would so desperately choke out the exuberant Life that is yours in Christ.

Stand before Him and tell Him He may have your hours. Your minutes.

Tell Him aloud.

There is a beautiful reward in ministering to the poor.

Remember, there are many kinds of poverty. There are those who have no home. There are those who are hungry. There are those who are ill and are poor in spirit. There are those who are in prison and are so impoverished, they are barely living.

Then, there are those who are old. In need. Lonely.

One of my most beautiful childhood memories is that of my father visiting a man who lived in a chicken coop. I remember the tiny shack, barely standing. The man must have had a degenerative disease, probably cancer. I remember how frail he was, I could see his bones - all of them. He coughed and had to hold on to the splintered, gray boards as he spoke to my father.

In my memory, the most striking thing was my father's love for the man.

I was seven years old, and we were in New Jersey, preparing to be missionaries. I think that was the first time I realized what it meant to reach out to those who were alone and without anyone else.

I have no idea if the man accepted the Lord, or if there was any other contact. I only know that we rode for a long time on dry, dusty roads to see someone we did not know. I knew the man was dying, and I knew that if we had not come, he would have died alone and without Jesus.

Oh, Soldier! Please. Look away from your own comfort needs, and be available. What is it to you if you live or die? What does it matter if you have much or little? You know where you are going and you have the assurance of eternal security.

He took up the Cross. Will you?