fix ---Let me go over some ideas of personal salvation. First a righteous man is one who calls on the name of the Lord. Now ive heard that Israel had a war priest. Possibly a priest that argued in the presence of the soldiers before they went into war that God would intervene and destroy the enemy. If you look this is like an outline of their teaching. It is a love for God who is Israels strength. It is a call to battle. Anytime you see the expression in scripture of asking God to "arise" it is a call for God to destroy their enemies. Arise is God intervening to address the coming argument of the priest as the motif for the confidence that war is needed and God is going to render the enemy powerless. This is like the idea that God has His heavenly armies and they are the watchmen that protect the city of Zion from all threats of the nations entering in climbing over the walls of the city. Or advancing through the gates. But you have this parallel to the teaching of obedience and trusting in God who is to be called on in the day of battle. Those who trust in God will gain the victory. This is the motif of obedience. Its a life of winning the small battles as God defines them. Then we get bigger battles. In the end the Lord will come and avenge our cause . But until then we are promised to be protected by His intervention in His time as we call on Him. This is the ot idea of an obedient life. The Lord is mighty to save. He saves in the day of temptation. Satan advances in this world to over throw Gods decrees. If you look the devil appeared when Christ was born and throughout the life of Christ the devil presented himself personally to Christ to try to thwart His purposes to over throw the evils and the threats of violence that filled the streets. We have in the coming of Christ the King taking the spoils and ruling His kingdom through our contesting on this earth and winning small battles ...then He will use our continuous resistance to finally cast Satan into eternal torment. We are to be valiant and heroic not enjoying this earth like it is ... even tho the spoils of war come to us when we are standing on top of the neck of our enemies. Seek first His kingdom... His victory and all these spoils will be added to you. The biblical world view is not two sided but its Gods smile behind our seeming loses only to in the end return our wealth if we do not give up. Now Christ is said to come as a great warrior in the sky. He has His chariots and He has His horses. A most glorious site to see. He has all of His angels who are the most fierce war machine that any one could imagine. The saint in one who goes out to battle and he gets entangled in the fight so that he is close to being overcome and is endanger of the fatal head shot of the enemy. Then Christ appears in the sky. The battle is won... Christ destroys the enemy and gathers His sheep. Christ actually comes because He has His focus on saving us. He is a God of salvation! He reaches down and then He gives us rewards. He declares us victors and tells us how obedient we are. He not only gives us the victory but He gives us boldness that is supernatural. We stand before His war tribunal and we receive a recommendation of advancement as a reward. Not only does He get all the praise but He stands at His throne and tells the whole world that we have been faithful and that He is rewarding us for our faithfulness. Do you know what the most beautiful trait we possess? Humility! He rewards us for our war victory and our calling on Him to intervene! But then He fills us with a strength that we do not experience in our own powerful victory. Now listen to me... our strength is not depended upon our moral excellence! Our strength is a foreign strength. Listen... we go from strength to strength! In other words its not in our ability but its in our understanding as spiritual warriors. Its our taking up the armor of God and fighting in our lives! Its looking at our Lord as the commander and we win battles along the way. Its acknowledging God to be God! This is terribly personal. We are not defined by our family our job our position in this world. We are defined in God gaining victory in our battles as we go along the way. This is going from strength to strength. Every day we have the commander calling on us. He tells us to get our minds in gear for battle. When we look at life as a daily battle cry then we begin to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. We begin to get practical. The imaginations in our minds is that we are products of the institutions of this world. This is the so called game mentality. We think heros are athletic. Any one who plays games gets the earthly spoils. But Gods world has no games. Gods world is dangerous... ruthless in defending us... destructive to evil... and piercing men through with their own traps. Serious minded men experience the power of God over their whole bodies.The practical christian life is not trading a good change for a better life. Its not graduating into a group of obedient saints... its not gaining better relationships through tactics of speech... or giving gifts or taking care of our bodies. The christian man is life is being. A christian man lives as who he is. He just is. The christian man only trust in the experience. He is who he always is no matter what the other definition of is.. is. The christian man is because reality is what a christian man is being . Who told you that you were naked? Now listen when we call on God and wait in expectation then we find we are in a battle. When we continue to engage ourselves in our battles.. .resisting the devil then we are filled with power. This power is His training our hands and our feet to advance against our enemies. When we focus on the victory.. that is we look and will not stop until we walk over our enemies as God defines them then we begin to have this life where we experience supernatural power that comes on us in the maturing of our understanding. This is our desire for heavenly things. Its God training our bodies through the experience of His power!