If you’ve ever helped pioneer a new church, had a difficult role in leadership, stood with a cancer patient who was dying, gone through unbearable financial difficulties, realized someone was using you wrongfully, been taken advantage of, had to deal with a subverter, been deceived, rejected, and left alone—then you have been in the combat zone!
It is true that the front lines of battle are exciting. But it is also true that this is where satanic attacks are most frequent. It is here, on the front lines—on the cutting edge—where Satan hits hard and often, trying to drive back those brave fighters who are storming hell’s gates in order to take new ground for the kingdom of God.
There is no place more exciting or more dangerous than the front lines of battle. If you score a big victory here, you will be heralded as one of God’s champions.
However, if you are hit by one of Satan’s attacks, it could remove you from the fight forever. Many great Christian leaders have been mortally wounded by the attacks of Satan.
As First Timothy 1:19 says, “…which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.” Recent years of scandal in the ministry have brought this reality painfully to bear on our minds.
To exist in the combat zone takes courage. It requires that you possess fierce determination, and it necessitates that you understand the strategies of the adversary.
Some in the combat zone become fatally wounded. Others become defectors, leaving those faithful ones still fighting with all their strength and giving their lives on the front lines.
Not wanting to keep up the fight in the midst of massive warfare, and fearful that they will be associated with radicals who might “fail,” the defectors abandon the front lines of battle to which God has called them.
God needs a special brand of believer who will challenge the foe and storm the gates of hell!
God is still looking for those special believers who want to enter and live in the combat zone. While the risk here is certain, the rewards are the greatest. When the battle is over, those brave fighters on the front lines have the “first pick” of the enemy’s plunder!
God is calling. He is looking for believers who will step ahead of the rest of the ranks and look the enemy directly in the face.
Are you one of these? Are you called to live and fight in the combat zone?
Advice for the Combat Zone
In the midst of a combat zone, Paul writes in Second Timothy 1:1-2,
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my dearly beloved son; grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
When writing here, Paul deviates from his normal salutation. In most epistles, Paul says, “Grace and peace be unto you….” Here Paul says, “Grace, and mercy, and peace….”
This is very important. Paul inserts the word “mercy” in only three salutations in all of his epistles: in First and Second Timothy and in Titus.
Why? Because in all three cases, Paul is writing to someone who feels overwhelmed by his situation. For instance, in First Timothy, when Timothy had just assumed his leading role in Ephesus, Timothy is overwhelmed because his church is growing so fast he doesn’t feel adequate to do the job.
Because of the awesome task at hand, he needs more than grace and peace; he needs to hear about God’s mercy to help him in his situation! Have you ever felt such a need for God’s mercy?
In Second Timothy, as we have seen, Timothy is overwhelmed because the church is declining, and because people are deserting him, the church, and the Lord. Now he is overwhelmed with feelings of hurt, rejection, and anger.
To continue his work in the Lord, he must have a special measure of God’s mercy. Have you ever asked for a special measure of God’s mercy to deal with a horrible predicament?
Imagine what Titus must have felt when Paul left him on the island of Crete to establish the church there. One of their own Cretian prophets had said, “The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.”
Paul adds his own testimony by saying, “This witness is true” (Titus 1:12-13). Imagine trying to start a church with people like that!
Titus needed to know that a special measure of mercy was available to him for his difficult task. He needed mercy to work with the Cretians!
Isn’t it good to know that when God calls you to do something difficult—something that overwhelms you—or something that you feel inadequate to do—He tucks a little extra mercy between the grace and the peace?
There is a special measure of mercy to those who feel overwhelmed by their predicament. This was especially good news for young Timothy.
It is good news for you, too, since you also live in the combat zone!
Excerpt permission granted by Albury Publishers
Rick and Denise met while they were each on an individual quest to wholeheartedly follow God's plan for their lives. Rick was a college student, growing in his teaching ministry. Denise was a talented vocalist. She chose not to pursue a course that held the prospect of performing with the Metropolitan Opera so that she could instead pursue a relationship with Rick and fulfill her heart's desire to enter full-time ministry.
Rick and Denise's friendship has led to lifelong love and a powerful partnership in building the Kingdom of God. After a decade of ministry, first as pastor and then as itinerant ministers, Rick and Denise Renner embarked on an adventure of a lifetime. In January 1991, the Renners and their sons Paul, Philip, and Joel left behind all they knew to relocate their family to serve the region that only weeks earlier had become the former Soviet Union.
Rick and Denise remember kneeling together as a family and kissing the ground when they arrived at the airport in Latvia on that cold January day. At that moment, they all committed their lives to the will of God and to the people of their new homeland. The following year, Rick moved forward to launch and establish the first of its kind, and eventually the largest, a Christian television network in that region of the world.
Over the years, Rick and Denise pioneered three churches, a Bible school, and a ministerial association that serves thousands of Russian-speaking pastors throughout the former USSR as well as parts of the Middle East. As Rick began training and mentoring leaders in the early days, Denise also developed a women's ministry that is actively involved in changing the lives of women and their families today. Specifically, they minister to the needs of orphans, women prisoners, the homeless, and drug-and-alcohol addicts.
Rick, Denise, and their children began as a small circle of five, willing to go beyond their comfort zone to reach the uttermost parts of the world. Today that circle includes their sons' wives, six grandchildren, and a large ministry staff that helps the Renners extend their reach as they exalt Jesus Christ as the Hope of all nations.