Picture two occasions: first, a sunny Lord’s Day morning as people file into church; second, a blood-drenched battlefield in a warzone. It’s hard to imagine two more different scenes. Yet the Bible tells us they are not so far apart, because Christians are soldiers in a war that has been raging for millennia.

Do you think of yourself as a soldier?

Military imagery is applied to church throughout the Bible. Old Testament Israel waged literal war against the enemies of the Lord. Jesus describes the Christian life in military terms in a number of places, but Paul more than anyone develops the metaphor.

In 2 Timothy 2:3, Paul calls Timothy to share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. Paul is writing to Timothy as a pastor in charge of the churches in Asia Minor. Although the principles here apply especially to ministers and elders, they also apply to all Christians because of the other places where Paul compares the Christian to a soldier (e.g. Eph. 6:10-17). Here’s the key thought in what Paul says: Good soldiers are prepared to suffer and don’t get entangled in civilian affairs.

Every Christian is a soldier in Christ’s army. The only question is, are you a good soldier or a bad soldier?

In 2001, in the weeks leading up to the war in Afghanistan, soldiers from the elite British regiment, the SAS, were inserted into the country and went through what they call “hard routine.” During daylight hours they had to lie motionless. They couldn’t light a fire at any point, either for heat or for cooking. They slept three hours at a time in damp sleeping bags at best. They ate army rations out of vacuum-packed sachets. They endured extreme discomfort and hardship. They hid in caves, rocks, and shadows. Some had to dig shallow trenches and lie under camouflage netting for hours. When they couldn’t refill their water bottles they sucked pebbles to keep their saliva going. They did it without complaint or argument, because they were good soldiers.

Many comforts and enjoyments that are perfectly fine for civilians are just no longer options for soldiers. Paul says it’s like that for soldiers of Christ Jesus. Don’t get entangled by the things of this world. He’s not talking so much about things that are wrong, but things that are distracting. It’s quite possible to be involved in civilian affairs without getting entangled, but we need to be constantly on our guard, assessing our hearts and lives.

• Christians can have a Facebook account—but we need to be careful not to forever click links and follow the white rabbit of curiosity deeper into cyber Wonderland. It might be good theological stuff, or it might be a video of an emu dancing in a garden sprinkler, but is it distracting you from what God has given you to do at that moment?

• There may be nothing wrong with watching a moderate amount of TV (depending on what you’re watching), but do you regularly get entangled and spend hours following every football game, or binge-watching series of TV shows?

• What about computer games? Whether you play Xbox games or Candy Crush, is it entangling you so that you’re wasting countless hours of precious time with nothing to show for it?

• It is good to read quality literature in moderation; literatures is one of the good things God has given us to enjoy richly. It might be a light, “lowbrow” novel or it might be Charles Dickens—but are you in danger of getting so obsessed with reading another chapter that you just can’t put your book down?

• It is good to exercise; in fact, God commands us to care for our bodies. But are you spending so many hours at the gym or playing sports that your first duties to your church and your family and your work are suffering?

A good soldier will cut back or get rid of anything that hinders him or her from having time for the things that matter most. It sounds hard, doesn’t it? That’s why Paul packs this whole chapter full of encouragements to motivate us to be good soldiers. Notice one in particular. He reminds Timothy that he is a soldier of Christ Jesus. We are not called to deny ourselves and suffer hardship for the sake of some faceless government, incompetent general, or abstract ideology. We do these things for Jesus. Paul makes our purpose clear in 2 Timothy 2:4, “in order to please the one who enlisted him.”

We can please Him—we do please Him! Isn’t that a great perspective when you’re enduring hardship as a Christian? When cutting out entanglements, remember, “I am pleasing the Lord Jesus Christ!”