“7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. 10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Heb 13:7-16 ESV)

Tandem meanings and avenues obtain purchase in the Christian’s Mind: the reliance and certainty of a Good and Faithful Christ, Father, Spirit; and the harrowing reality that there is no one gonna swoop in and save us, no one “up there” to answer our—yes I swear I am being forthright and innocent, right?—queries and challenges to the entire, yes the entire, Christ edifice called Religion.

Tempted then to say, religion progresses in stages, and you must at least Encounter the earlier stages in order to appreciate the later ones: the stage that says, to endeavor for moral code, for ethics society-wide and personally-wide, is a fine thing. Yet we jump to the punchline and say God Love Me! Love me, a sinner. Write for me. Heal me. Answer all my questions because, after all, I swear I am being a Good Kid, forthright and deserving of your Response.

As the entire coast-land or interior is vulnerable to onslaught of Bomb-like Ideas, ideas spreading like gangrene, every Helmsperson should at least know that Denouement of “I trusted a fair judge would intervene, but also having seen the devastation caused by Sin, I am no longer on my self-righteous Perch; what I wouldn’t Give for a different outcome to have obtained”.

More, ideas spread like wildfire of a Rumored Apostle called the Christ. And for those who are self-aware a bit, who are contrite a bit, who say “Please do, if you’re real, do intervene, I can use all the help I can get”: to these the initial attitude of non-confrontational Surrender: surrender to a Principled Notion of Ambassador, of Anointed One, of Christ, gives Him license—no longer under the rejectamenta rubric of Smelly and Unwanted—to Act Out and Live Into the Servant-Minded Dutiful Response to each and every Individual ready Witness.

Therefore to take Personal Responsibility—another half-way but necessary stage of religion—is to understand we really must Contribute and Give our all. To the moral and ethical, peaceloving and spiritual, Cause. That any written or logical Creed can come under abuse and misuse and fire. Heavy artillery Fire, indeed, that mocks the Claims: stop being Cute, stop saying, “If you’re Christ then answer all my personal questions, nevermind those to whom you have a mission and ministry”.

Profiteering simply saddens each and every soldier, to know that War is escalated Falsely, even internal wars between liberal and conservative: and though the result is some brand of genius we—that is, our enemy—never even could have intentionally Designed, it came about just Accidentally, one legal injunction after another until! See how they fall like dominoes around the Request to speak in coded language, and that said Code is somehow Proof of your status called Saved.

True religion, then, asks like any good Capitalist Asks, for measures of the Fruits obtained. No, they say, we are helpless and He has done all things on our behalf. But! The true religion should bear out en masse, if not individually, the Claims fulfilled, that Christ is in the business of making elementary Religion come true, of turning over a new leaf in each individuals’ lives.

Therefore the soldier is both Aware and Comprehensive, and is Trusting Nakedly and Innocently in a Way that does not spell Total Control, that allows Good Structures to invent themselves innocently and accidentally, then be Safeguarded as the Finest Analysis and Prospectus we as a society own.

The recipes for Disaster, then, are always on the table, and we have faith in the uncounted ones, those city our country dwellers whose vote in time of War will literally save countless lives, yet the progeny and existence of these people cannot be measured. They are literally Responding… if the Spiritual Body called Christ’s Beloved Church puts up one ambassador, she puts up Two; each can weave a magical Web of head-nodding, sensible Prognosis… and can swear on all things Holy, on His Name, that these things are—scout’s honor—the be-all and end-all of Life Today. Life in Community. Life as yes Christians.

As to the personal Salvation of the soldier’s soul: she or he is gladsome and fortress-like in some regards, immune to the dislike of her or his People Sent To, but also Listening and Available, easily wounded on some level, as the bombs of ideology and frustrated Exclamation do fall. As the crowd seems to shy away from. As the Audience, nonetheless, is Virtual and quite Real. We speak to a certain People, and forget sometimes to write also a Love Letter to the Church, Christ’s Church, His Beloved for His Name’s Sake.