And that King sends us out again, not to have the cross hung on a peg until the following week, but to bear that cross as his standard bearers before the entire world. We cannot escape being Christ's soldiers, whatever our station in life. We may be afraid. In fact, God expects us to be afraid at least some of the time, or else he would not have offered us his Son's Cross as our standard or his own armor for our protection. But all armies are afraid, and what sets one army apart from another isn't so much the fact of its fear, but the fact of what it fears.
Faithful armies fear the failure of their cause more than they fear their own destruction.
The good news for the Army of Christ, of course, is that our cause has already succeeded in Jesus Christ, so that the only thing we really need to fear is our failure to live up to Christ's accomplished victory. This is a spiritual war that we fight, even when our battles seem the most physical. Thus, when we consider some of the great battles of the godly in history, we learn two important lessons. We are not alone, and God has the almighty power to give us the success that is according to his purposes. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots.