And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. 
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost,
​whether he have sufficient to finish it? 
 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it,
all that behold it begin to mock him, 
Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Luk 14:27-30

Life Is a Building
It is notable that in this little parable, and in the one which directly follows it (Luk_14:31), which deal with the great endeavors of the human soul, our Lord brings in the figure of the builder, and of a king making war upon another king. Christ always took human life at its best and kingliest, and even His illustrations have a royal touch. But the point to note is that Christ compared life to building. Life was like architecture or like war. Building and battling—these are the Master's figures; and I do not think the world has ever bettered them. There are rare souls that seem to grow, not build. And it may be some of us have known one saint—our mother perhaps—who bore no marks of conflict anywhere, and seemed to have reached the highest without a struggle. But for most of us it is the other way. Effort on effort, failure after failure, we have to forge and hammer ourselves towards what is honorable. And there are days when we seem to be building up a prison-house, until God in His mercy shatters that to fragments. Just note, then, that it is in a little parable of building that our Savior teaches us to count the cost.

Christ's Yoke Is Easy
Now, anyone who has read much in religious literature must have been struck by a kind of contradiction in it. He must have been arrested by two opposite conceptions of what religion really demands. I read some sermons, or I listen to some preaching, and religion seems exquisitely sweet and easy. I thought there was a cross in our religion, but when I read some of our current literature—if there be a cross it is so wreathed with honeysuckle that a poor soul can stumble past it easily. The valley of the shadow seems to have grown antiquated; we are to walk on the delectable mountains all the way. Mark you, we never can insist enough on the true joy of the religious life. We never can forget that to the heavy-laden, Christ said, and says forever, "My yoke is easy." But that is so interpreted sometimes, and the harder and sterner sayings are so evaded, that religion seems to walk in silver slippers.

Christ Promises a Cross
But when I turn to another class of teachers—and some of the greatest of every age are in it—what impresses me is not the ease of things, but the depth and difficulty of religion. The gate is narrow; the way is strait and mountainous; the cross is heavy, and the flesh cries out against it. Read Dr. Newman's sermons to see that view of the religious life expressed in matchless English. That, then, is the seeming contradiction. These are the two opposite conceptions. The one says, "If I come to Jesus, happy shall I be." The other says, "If I find Him, if I follow, what His guerdon here? Many a sorrow, many a labor, many a tear."

Well, in our text there can be little question that our Lord leans to the latter of these views. It is a great thing to be an earnest Christian, it is a high calling to be a knight of that round table; let a man, says Jesus, deliberately sit down and count the cost, lest the fair fame of it be smirched and sullied by him. Nothing impresses us more in Jesus Christ than His insistence on quality, not quantity. He never hesitated to set the standard high, even though men should be offended at Him. It is better to be served by twenty loyal hearts, than by half a hundred undisciplined adventurers. Think it all out, says Christ. Sit down, count up the cost, find what it comes to. Rash promising is certain to make shipwreck. I want you to be still, and know that I am God.

Now I think it immensely increases our reverence for Jesus to find Him dealing thus with human souls. He never veils the hardship of His calling, He is so absolutely certain of its glory. When Drake and the gallant captains of Queen Elizabeth's time went out into the streets of Plymouth to get sailors, they told them quite frankly of the storms of the Pacific, and of the reefs in it, and of the fevers of Panama. They honored their brave Devonshire comrades far too much to get them to sign on under any false pretences. But then there was the Spanish gold and treasure, and the glory of it, and all England to ring with it. And the men counted the cost and signed for that daring service, in the spacious times of great Elizabeth. And I honor our Captain for dealing with men like that—that press-gang is an un-Christlike instrument. Christ says: You are a free man; count the cost. Life is before you: choose whom you will serve. I offer you a cross, also a crown. I offer you struggle, but there shall be victory. You shall be lonely, yet lo, I am with you always. You shall be restless, yet I will give you rest. Was there ever a leader so frank, so open, so brave, as the Master who is claiming you tonight?

Counting the Cost
And it is just here that the service of our Lord stands at opposite poles from the service of sin. For the one thing that sin can never do is to say to a man, "Sit down and count the cost of it." Do you think that tonight's drunkard ever counted the cost when men called him such splendid company twenty years ago? Do you think that the man who has tried for, and missed, life's prizes counted the cost when he was sowing his wild oats? Sin is too subtle, too sweet, too masterfully urgent, to give a man time for that arithmetic. "Evil is wrought by want of thought, as well as want of heart." If that young student will only deliberately count the cost; if he will only remember he is in the grip of law that no repentance ever can annul; if he will think that as he sows, so will he reap, I think he will shake himself and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan." It is true that you cannot put old heads upon young shoulders. But don't we begin counting when we are little children? And half the battle of a man's life is won when he sits down and counts the cost. Sin will keep a man from that, by hook or crook. But "come and let us reason together," saith the Lord.

Of course we must distinguish this wise deliberation from a merely calculating and cowardly prudence. It is often the man who has counted the cost most earnestly, who shows a kind of splendid imprudence to the world. I mean that what the world calls prudence is very often a somewhat shallow thing. It does not run its roots into the deeps; it is really a kindlier name for selfishness. And the man who has dwelt alone with the great things, and who has been touched by the hand of the Eternal, is not likely in that sense to be worldly wise. I dare say that everybody thought John Knox imprudent when he insisted on preaching in St. Andrews, though the Archbishop had warned him he would slay him. I dare say everybody thought Martin Luther imprudent, when he said he would go to the Diet though every tile on the housetops were a devil. But Knox and Luther had been alone with God; it was deliberate action, and not reckless folly. They had counted the cost for Scotland and for Christendom.

The fact is, that in all the highest courage there is the element of quiet calculation. The truest heroism always counts the cost. The bravery of passion is not a shining virtue. I think that a very ordinary man could storm a rampart, if he were a soldier. They tell us there is a wild forgetfulness of self in that last rush that would fire the blood and thrill the most timid. The test of courage is the long night march, under the fire of invisible guns; it is the sentry duty in the darkness, when the shadows and silence might shatter the strongest nerve: I think that the man who deliberately faces that, who goes through it quietly because it is his duty, is just as worthy of the Victoria Cross as the man who has won it in some more splendid moment. No man, said one of Oliver Cromwell, no man was a better judge than Oliver of what might be achieved by daring. Yet the true heroism of that noble soul was not the heroism of the rash adventurer. He never let texts do duty for tactics, says Mr. Morley. I always admired the answer of that man who was going forward with a comrade to some dangerous duty. And his comrade looked at him, and saw that his cheek was blanched. And he laughed and said, "I believe you are afraid." And the other, looking straight forward, said, "Yes, I am afraid, and if you were half as afraid as I am, you would go home." Do not forget, then, that when Jesus says, "Count the cost," He is really sounding the note of the heroic. He does not want anyone on false pretenses. He will not issue any lying prospectus. He comes to you and says, you are a thinking man, with powers that it will take eternity to ripen. Look life in the face. Look death in the face. Sum it all up, measure the value of things. And if you do that quietly and earnestly, with sincere prayer to God to enlighten you, My claims, Christ means, shall so tower above all others, that I shall have your heart and your service from that hour.

The Secret of Calm Persistence
I have been struck, too, in studying the Scriptures, to note how the great men there learned to count the cost. They were not suddenly dragged into the service. There was no unthinking and unreasoning excitement. God gave to everyone of them a time of silence before their high endeavor. It was as if He laid His hand upon them and said, "My child, go apart for a little, and count the cost." Moses was forty days alone with God. Elijah was in the wilderness alone. Paul, touched by the finger of the Lord whom he had persecuted, took counsel of no flesh, but departed into the loneliness of Arabia. Moses, Elijah, Paul—yes, even Simon Peter going out into the night—were learning the deep lesson of our parable. And whenever I read of the temptations of Jesus, and of how the Spirit of God drove Him apart, and how Satan came and showed Him all the kingdoms, and taught Him a less costly way to sovereignty than by the sweat of Gethsemane and the water and blood of Calvary—whenever I read that and recall how He stood fast, I feel that our Savior had counted the cost Himself. We shall never understand the calm persistence of the glorious company of martyrs and of saints till we go back to that quiet hour at the beginning when they faced every difficulty, weighed every cross, forecast the future, looked at life whole, and then, having counted the cost like reasonable men, took up their stand upon the side of God. A blind acceptance may be justifiable sometimes. But the great hearts were never led that way.

Now I want you to join that reasonable company. I do not know that that is popular doctrine, but I want to get the young men back to the Church of Christ again, and I am willing to risk unpopularity for that. "Come, let us reason together," saith the Lord. "Sit down and count the cost," says Jesus Christ. I do not ask any man to become a Christian blindly. It is the most reasonable act in the whole world. For the sake of a saved life and of a rich eternity you ought to make that reckoning immediately.
(Devotional Sermons)

Go Forward
And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel,
​that they go forward: 
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. Exo 14:15-16

"Imagine, O child of God, if you can, that triumphal march! The excited children restrained from ejaculations of wonder by the perpetual hush of their parents; the most uncontrollable excitement of the women as they found themselves suddenly saved from a fate worse than death; while the men followed or accompanied them ashamed or confounded that they had ever mistrusted God or murmured against Moses; and as you see those mighty walls of water piled by the outstretched hand of the Eternal, in response to the faith of a single man, learn what God will do for His own.
Dread not any result of implicit obedience to His command; fear not the angry waters which, in their proud insolence, forbid your progress. Above the voices of many waters, the mighty breakers of the sea, "the Lord sitteth King for ever."
A storm is only as the outskirts of His robe, the symptom of His advent, the environment of His presence.
Dare to trust Him; dare to follow Him! And discover that the very forces which barred your progress and threatened your life, at His bidding become the materials of which an avenue is made to liberty."
(F. B. Meyer)

 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him
​who hath chosen him to be a soldier. 2Ti 2:4
​
The Christian Soldier

Every Christian, and especially every Christian minister, may be regarded as a soldier, as an athlete (2Ti_2:5). as a husbandman (2Ti_2:6); but of the three similitudes the one which fits him best is that of a soldier. Even if this were not so, Paul’s fondness for the metaphor would be very intelligible.

Military service was very familiar to him, especially in his imprisonments. He must frequently have seen soldiers under drill, on parade, on guard, on the march; most have watched them cleaning, mending, and sharpening their weapons; putting their armor on, putting it off. Often, during hours of enforced inactivity, he must have compared these details with the details of the Christian life, and noticed how admirably they corresponded with one another.

Military service was also quite sufficiently familiar to those whom he addressed. Roman troops were everywhere to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the empire, and nearly every member of society knew something of the kind of life which a soldier of the empire had to lead.

The Roman army was the one great organization of which it was still possible, in that age of boundless social corruption, to think and speak with right-minded admiration and respect. No doubt it was often the instrument of wholesale cruelties as it pushed forward its conquests, or strengthened its hold, over resisting or rebelling nations. But it promoted discipline and esprit de corps. Even during active warfare it checked individual license, and when the conquest was over it was the representative and mainstay of order and justice against high-handed anarchy and wrong. Its officers several times appear in the narrative portions of the New Testament, and they make a favorable impression upon us. If they are fair specimens of the military men in the Roman Empire at that period, then the Roman army must have been indeed a fine service. But the reasons for the apostle’s preference for this similitude go deeper than all this.

Military service involves self-sacrifice, endurance, discipline, vigilance, obedience, ready cooperation with others, sympathy, enthusiasm, loyalty.
​
Military service implies vigilant, unwearying and organized opposition to a vigilant, unwearying, and organized foe. It is either perpetual warfare or perpetual preparation for it. And just such is the Christian life; it is either a conflict or is preparation for one. (A. Plummer, D. D.)

​"Not only ministers, but laymen, should be Christ’s ambassadors. Must a soldier be an officer in order to fight well? By no means. Minus gold lace and cocked hat, he may do good service. Hard blows may be given, or a sure aim may be taken, by him who is quite destitute of ribbon and medal. Thus is it spiritually. Eminent talent and honorable position are non-essentials in benevolent effort. The humblest warrior in the Savior's army can be valiant and victorious. And he ought to be. Excuse here is quite vain. None that are saved have a right to be idle; all are to evangelize. The work is not to be delegated to one order or class. Each is expected to take his share. What should we think of him who refused to rescue a drowning man because he was not connected with the Royal Humane Society? “Let him that heareth,” as well as him that preaches, “say Come.” (T. R. Stevenson)

Comment:
At this point, the Lord has prompted me to add a few things that the Christian will go through, and what we can do, that will help us to stay on track, when we face great adversity, and become weary, disillusioned, confused, and question our calling and walk with the Lord.

At these times, it's a good idea to take the time to get alone and do some serious soul searching, and seeking God in prayer, and recall the path He directed you on when He first called you into ministry, if you are a leader. Go back, and remember what His calling was, and how He directed you. Refresh your memory, on what God's intentions for you are, and what the purpose for your ministry is, in the Body of Christ. Ask if there's some sin you need to repent of, or if there's something He wants changed, in what your doing in your ministry. We have to be constantly seeking Him, for seasons of change, of either adding something to what we are doing, or stop something, and make the needed changes.

We are not all called to be in cookie-cutter ministries. God calls people in unique, and individual ministries, and uses us according to our gifts, and abilities. Don't look around at other's ministries, and feel you are lower, or not as spectacular as those in more public ministries, who are more popular than you. No one will really know how successful we are, until we stand before the Lord, and are shown by Him, what He thinks of us, and what we've done. John Wesley said something I remind myself of often- "You'll be rewarded according to your labor, not according to your success." 

Much of my ministry is done in maintaining and adding content to these websites I created. It takes many hours of time, research, and creativity to create the graphics, and devotions/teachings for these websites-much of it is done in the middle of night, when most are asleep. This comes from years of working the nightshift when I took care of seniors, I use the nights I don't sleep doing this. Intercession, and seeking the Lord on specific world events, is also a large part of this ministry-which started many years ago, when I served as a prayer chairman for Aglow Int. in Montpeliar Vt., in the 80's. As I listen to news videos, and podcasts, God gives me direction and also speaks specific things at times on what's really going on in a world event, and then confirms it in the next few days/weeks, and gives direction on how to pray about it. Most of this is never mentioned here, I've learned over the years, that a real watchman with prophetic calling will only be directed by God to speak publicly of it about 10% of the time, and if we do, it's for a very specific purpose. Today's "prophets" are many times, the same false prophets described in the bible-pillow prophets, and in it for the money and attention it brings them. Some of them are being exposed now, and they need to be.

It's been said before and worth repeating, sometimes it's very important to do nothing but to stand firm in your faith, your calling, and your position, and not worry about forcing something to happen. Be strong in your faith, and firm in your calling, without needing to make a step. Stand strong-where you are. Keep standing, keep proclaiming Christ is King, keep teaching/proclaiming the gospel, in the areas you have the ability to do so. God will honor this, and you'll defeat the devil, simply by not letting his attacks stop you. Faith, courage, standing firm, and proclaiming Christ to a wicked world-is the devil's number one goal in all his attacks against you. This is the great test-and the great conflict Paul dealt with his entire life. In the end, he stated-
2Ti 4:7  I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: 
2Ti 4:8  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
​ 
This is the pattern set for us in ministry, and any Christian, who stands for Christ in this evil day.
​Lorna Couillard

"Some of God’s people seem to forget this. They think they are soldiers on pay days and at reviews: but as soon as the fiery darts begin to fall around them, and the road gets rough and rugged, they fancy they are deserters. A strange mistake this. You are never so much a soldier as when you are marching or fighting. I fear the fault of this mistake lies very much with some of us who may be called recruiting sergeants. In persuading men to enlist we speak much more of the ribbons, the bounty money, and the rewards, than we do of the battle-field and the march. Hence, perhaps, the error. But if we are to blame in this respect our great King is not. The whole of His teaching is in the other direction. He puts all the difficulties fairly before us, and we are exhorted to count the cost, so that we may not be covered with shame at last." (C. Garrett.)

Christianity: a Warfare

If we are true Christians we are every one of us soldiers. If we really belong to Christ we are every one of us carrying on a daily warfare. The enemy is never out of our sight; the contest is a lifelong contest; the battle ground is our soul; the enemy whom we have to beat down is sin in its ten thousand varying forms; the struggle is often invisible to all but ourselves: alone we have to fight, alone we have to conquer, seen only, aided only, guided only (it may be) by our unseen Chieftain, our great and glorious Leader, who, seated high above the din and turmoil of the contest, watches all the efforts, and controls all the movements of His mighty host.

Our text gives us some very necessary, very useful advice on this topic. It bids us remember that it is not an easy thing to be a Christian: it bids us remember that to be a soldier of the Cross requires effort and self-denial and constant endurance. Thou therefore endure hardness," or, as it might be paraphrased, "Thou therefore take thy share of suffering, take thy portion of hardship, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

Our army has its great tradition. Through the exertions of the early warriors it is that we are possessed, as we are today, of all the blessings of the Gospel. To their courage, their zeal, and their love for souls, we owe the peace and the happiness which Christianity has brought to us. Let us thank God that He raised up these mighty warriors; let us thank God that they went forth as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, and conquered ignorance, conquered superstition, conquered sin. One last word. Do not let us forget that we belong to a victorious army. We are on the conquering side: those of us who love and serve Christ must prevail at last.  (E. V. Hall, The Waiting Savior, p. 37)

Let us understand the meaning of the injunction, “endure hardness.” The reference is to the life of privation and suffering which a soldier, far more in those times than now, had to undergo, and which in all times he is expected to bear without murmuring, to endure willingly, as a part of that profession which he has voluntarily embraced. Endurance is not merely bearing suffering, but bearing it manfully. To bear hardship with the spirit of a hero is to “endure hardness as a good soldier.” Samuel Rutherford, when in prison, used to date his letters from “Christ’s Palace, Aberdeen,” and when Madam Guyon was confined in the castle of Vincennes, she said, “It seems as if I were a little bird whom the Lord has placed in a cage, and that I have nothing now to do but sing.” Paul, too, did not tell his son in the faith to do more than he had done himself.

The Christian’s profession, as a soldier, implies a voluntary change of position in life.

It is now nearly universally allowed that an intelligent acquaintance with the plans of the general, and with the purposes for which the battle is fought, or the campaign undertaken, by begetting confidence in his leader, enables the soldier to render more efficient service. So in proportion as a Christian grows in the knowledge of God and of His plans for the redemption of our world as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, in that proportion he throws his whole soul into the fight. Four special conditions in which a soldier is called upon to “endure hardness.”

1. In standing his ground. Wellington brought peace to Europe by his stand at Waterloo. To retire would have been disgrace, to advance would have been destruction. Holding his position brought victory. The battle of Inkermann was won by an eight hours’ resistance of six thousand men to sixty thousand. So a Christian soldier often finds himself so hotly assaulted by the world, the flesh, and the devil, that he is unable to advance a foot. But a firm, resisting stand is conquest.

2. A soldier must endure hardness in marching. The chief care of one who has a long march before him is to be well shod. If this be not attended to, even things so insignificant as thorns and briars will occasion suffering, and may unfit the soldier for the fight. So the lesser vexations and petty cares and trials of patience in everyday life, if not guarded against, will weary and wound the “feet of the soul,” as Bishop Home calls the affections, and, footsore and wearied, he will be ill-prepared for those special encounters with the enemy to which he is always liable.

3. The soldier must endure hardness in action.

4. Although many an earthly soldier endures who is never crowned, no soldier of Christ is overlooked in the day of victory. The only condition is endurance. (W. Harris)

Why Should We Endure Hardness?

Do it for your own sakes because we cannot live like beasts to be cloyed with honey; because sickness and satiety are the just nemesis of self-indulgence; because, by the very constitution of the nature God has given you, it is a bad thing as well as ruinous to all earthly happiness that the body should be pampered, since where the body is pampered the spirit is almost necessarily starved. We have bodies; but we are spirits. He who would truly live must walk in the Spirit, and he who would walk in the Spirit must keep the body under stern control.
​
But we go further and say, endure hardness also because it is the manifest will of God. See what pains God takes to teach us that it is His will. The everlasting hills are full of their mineral riches, but to get them men must drive the tunnel and sink the shaft. The soil teems with golden harvests, but to win them man must scatter his seeds into the furrow, and breathe hard breath over the plough. Nature has priceless secrets in her possession; but she holds them out to us clenched in a granite hand, which sheer labor must unclasp. Everywhere in nature God teaches us the same great lesson. Anything worth having is not to be had for nothing.

Endure hardness also because it is the training-school of worth. When God wants a nation to do Him high service, to fight His battles, to wrestle in His arenas, then He gives that nation labors and sorrows too. He takes them out of the sluggish levels of Egypt, and makes them climb His granite mountains and listen to the wild music of His desert winds. A nation of greedy slaves might have been contented to live and die in gluttonous animalism; but when God wants heroes, then out of His house of bondage He calls His sons. Read God’s lessons written on the broad page of history. The type of Egypt’s centuries of sluggish placidity is but the cruel, motionless, staring Sphinx; but the type of immortal Greece and the brave flash of her glory is the Apollo launching at the Python with his arrows. What would Sparta have been had she never had Thermopylae? What would Athens have been but for Salamis and Marathon?

​Endure hardness, scorn sloth, embrace labor, despise sham, practice self-denial in the path of duty, because Christ did. It is the will of Christ; because there is no virtue and there is no holiness possible without it. The word “virtue” occurs but once in the whole of the New Testament; because the pagan world has made of it too dwarfed an ideal, and Christianity had better words than that; but even the pagan world saw that broad is the path of evil—broad, and straight, and smooth to ruin by the steps of sin. The type of nobleness, even to the pagan world, was not Sardanapalus, but Hercules; not Apicius, the glutton, but Leonidas, the king. They knew it was difficult to be a good man—difficult, and not so easy as it seems; they knew that any fool could be a money-getter, or a drunkard, or a debauchee; that out of the very meanest, vilest clay that ever was you can make an effeminate corrupter, or selfish schemer, or a slanderer, or a thief; but that it takes God’s own gold to make a man, and that it wants the furnace and the toil to make of that gold and fine gold; and it is strange how unanimous all nations have been on this point. David Hume has a passage in his writings about virtue, and her affability, and her engaging manners, nay, even, at proper intervals, her frivolity and gaiety, and her parting not willingly with any pleasure, and requiring a just calculation, and her ranking us as enemies to joy and pleasure, as hypocrites, or deceivers, or the less favored of her votaries; whereupon one of our men of science, far from being a dogmatist, says that in this paean of virtue there is more of a dance measure than will sound appropriate in the ears of most of the pilgrims who toil painfully, not without many a stumble, along the rough and steep road that leads to the higher life. But if virtue be difficult of acquirement, far more is holiness. (F. W. Farrar, D. D.)

"No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life" - Having alluded to the soldier, and stated one thing in which the Christian minister is to resemble him, another point of resemblance is suggested to the mind of the apostle. Neither the minister nor the soldier is to be encumbered with the affairs of this life, and the one should not be more than the other. This is always a condition in becoming a soldier. He gives up his own business during the time for which he is enlisted, and devotes himself to the service of his country. The farmer leaves his plow, and the mechanic his shop, and the merchant his store, and the student his books, and the lawyer his brief; and neither of them expect to pursue these things while engaged in the service of their country. It would be wholly impracticable to carry on the plans of a campaign, if each one of these classes should undertake to prosecute his private business. See this fully illustrated from the Rules of War among the Romans, by Grotius, “in loc.” Roman soldiers were not allowed to marry, or to engage in any husbandry or trade; and they were forbidden to act as tutors to any person, or curators to any man’s estate, or proctors in the cause of other men. The general principle was, that they were excluded from those relations, agencies, and engagements, which it was thought would divert their minds from that which was to be the sole object of pursuit. So with the ministers of the gospel. It is equally improper for them to “entangle” themselves with the business of a farm or plantation; with plans of speculation and gain, and with any purpose of worldly aggrandizement. The minister of the gospel accomplishes the design of his appointment only when he can say in sincerity, that he “is not entangled with the affairs of this life.

"That he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" - That is, him who has enlisted him, or in whose employ he is. His great object is to approve himself to him. It is not to pursue his own plans, or to have his own will, or to accumulate property or fame for himself. His will is absorbed in the will of his commander, and his purpose is accomplished if he meet with his approbation. Nowhere else is it so true that the will of one becomes lost in that of another, as in the case of the soldier. In an army it is contemplated that there shall be but one mind, one heart, one purpose - that of the commander; and that the whole army shall be as obedient to that as the members of the human body are to the one will that controls all. The application of this is obvious. The grand purpose of the minister of the gospel is to please Christ. He is to pursue no separate plans, and to have no separate will, of his own; and it is contemplated that the whole “Corps” of Christian ministers and members of the churches shall be as entirely subordinate to the will of Christ, as an army is to the orders of its chief."  (Albert Barnes)
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Note: The teaching below is very relevant to this devotion, and the day we live in now. Derek Prince taught this many years ago, in the 90's, it was prophetic in many ways. It was spoken in 1992, at Westminster Chapel UK. Many of the things he brings out in this study, we are living in now. He said the same thing I did, when both president Bush's began to speak in public about the coming "New World Order", and programing people for it-most Christians were blind, and could not see what they were doing, but some of us knew, and Derek Prince exposed it also in this video. When I heard both of them promoting the NWO in their speeches-I renounced them every time, and the Holy Spirit has had me praying against it ever since. The wars, chaos and social collapse we are in now, has all been by design, and Trump is just playing his role, and extending it even more. The things Derek Prince teaches and advises in this, are very much needed in this hour-for those who have ears to hear.

How To Respond To The Shaking Of All Things--Derek Prince Bible Study
https://youtu.be/ZANf57k9y0M?si=fvkHsBo42TJYdFQb

 Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying, 
It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night. 
And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on,
​and gone down to Gilgal. 
And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD. 
And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears,
and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? 
And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. 
Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night.
And he said unto him, Say on. 
And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head
of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel? 
And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites,
and fight against them until they be consumed. 
Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil,
and didst evil in the sight of the LORD? 
And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek,
and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 
But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been
​utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal. 
And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD,
​he hath also rejected thee from being king. 1Sam 15:10-23
​
Saul's Second Act of Disobedience

God will not accept a partial obedience to any of His commands. There is nothing strange or unreasonable in this. If a human ruler gives a command, he will not be satisfied if the person to whom he gives it obeys it just so far as it suits his convenience or agrees with his fancy and no farther. Anything less than a whole obedience is no obedience in the estimation of a fellow-creature. If a soldier receives an order from his general to execute a certain military movement, he is not expected to consult his own wishes or his own judgment, but he must sink his own will entirely in the will of his superior, and fulfil his command to the very letter. However stern may be the work to be done, whatever sacrifice of personal feeling may be involved, anything less than an observance of the commandment in its entirety will be counted as grave a crime as the non-observance of the whole. If a father directs his son to perform a given task, and the son executes about half of that which is required of him, the father will consider that his command has been disobeyed. If this is the case with human superiors, it cannot be expected that the Holy and All-wise God, whose commands—however stern they may sometimes seem—are always perfectly just and good, will be satisfied with less than an entire obedience to His commands. He is surrounded by ten thousand faithful and mighty angelic servants, who render to him a perfect and unquestioning service, and although imperfect and sinful creatures cannot offer to Him a service equal to theirs, yet there are Divine commands which men are able to carry out to the letter, and which they must so carry out if they would not incur the penalty of disobedient servants of the Most High. Such a command was that which was here given to Saul—it was one which he could obey—one for the non-observance of which he could not plead inability—one which he did not attempt to say he was unable to perform. His partial obedience was rejected—his non-observance of all the details of the Divine command was accounted as direct an act of defiance of God’s directions as if he had taken no action whatever against the Amalekites. And so God will ever account compliance with His commands, which is measured not by His requirements but by man’s inclinations.

Where the condition is not fulfilled which is included in the Divine plan of blessing, God repents, not by changing His mind, but by changing His method in relation to the sinner. It is obvious that God cannot undergo a change of disposition or of motive. He is perfect in goodness, and therefore, in all His dealings with His creatures He must always have their welfare in view. He must always be willing to do for them that which is best for their highest interests. It is not possible for the Ruler of the world to act from any of the unworthy motives which sometimes influence men in their conduct towards each other. And being as infinite in wisdom as He is in goodness, He can have no better plans than His original plans, no second thoughts which are better than His first. When, therefore, God speaks of Himself as repenting, He speaks of a change of His dealings with a man, which are the result of a change in that man’s attitude towards Himself. Such a change is quite compatible with an unchangeable character and disposition, and is, indeed, the result of it. To men of the same character God’s attitude is the same now as it was ages ago, and it will be the same to the end of time, and when a man’s relations to God are altered it is in consequence of a change in himself, and not in the unchangeable God. There was no change in God when, in consequence of Saul’s non-compliance with the conditions of kingship, God rejected him from being king over Israel. He had been anointed by “the Lord to be captain over His inheritance” (1Sa_10:1)—in other words to be His vicegerent in Israel, and when he refused to act in that capacity God proved His own unchangeableness by changing His method of dealing with him. A purpose of blessing on the part of God towards men always includes a condition to be fulfilled on their part, and a purpose of judgment always includes a continuance on the part of the sinner of the conduct which has provoked the judgment. This is the explanation of the repentance of God in relation to the men of the old world, and in relation to the Ninevites. In the first case God sent judgment because the offenders refused to repent, and in the second instance He revoked His sentence of judgment because the men of Nineveh were willing to forsake their sins and return to Him for pardon.
(See Gen_6:5-6; Jon_3:10).

Obedience is better than the offering to God of any other sacrifice.
1. Because it is a sacrifice of far higher value. Obedience is the giving up of the will to the will of another—it is therefore the sacrifice of the whole man. When a man has given himself thus to God, he has offered to Him all that he has to offer—all his powers of soul and body as well as all his material possessions. This was the sacrifice which Adam offered to his Maker before he sinned, and this is the offering which has been for ages offered to God by His sons who have never at any time resisted His will. This is far more precious, and therefore far more acceptable to the Lord, than “thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil” (Mic_6:7), because it is a spiritual and moral sacrifice.
2. It is a sacrifice which can be offered at any time and in any place. The sacrifices of the Levitical law were required to be offered in certain places. A man who desired to sacrifice to the Lord could only do so by coming up to the place appointed, and hence his offerings could only be made at intervals. But obedience is a sacrifice which can always be rendered to God—an expression of love to Him which can be made everywhere and always.
3. It is a sacrifice which every man can offer for himself. Even in Israel there might have been men at times too poor to be able to bring the least costly material offering to the altar of the Lord; but none is ever too poor to offer his will to God—to give himself up to His guidance and submit to His commands. And this is a sacrifice in which there is no need of the intervention of a third person—an offering in which every man can be his own priest.
4. It is the sacrifice which alone can make any other sacrifice acceptable. All other offerings without this are “vain oblations,” and even “an abomination” (Isa_1:13) unto Him who owns “every beast of the forest and the cattle upon a thousand hills” (Psa_50:10). To expect a Holy and Spiritual Being to be willing to accept anything less than the offering of the heart, is to expect Him to be satisfied with less than would often content a fellow-creature. Many a man would spurn a gift which was not an outcome of inward feeling, and yet God’s creatures sometimes act as if they thought their Maker could be bribed by such an offering.  (Preacher's Homiletical)

Stubborn-Obstinate Disobedience
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. 1Sam 15:23

1Sa_15:23. Literally, “Rebellion is the sin of soothsaying, and opposition is heathenism and idolatry.”
Rebellion - Disobedience to God's command. Stubbornness - Contumacy in sin, justifying it, and pleading for it. Iniquity - Or, the iniquity of idolatry. Rejected - Hath pronounced the sentence of rejection: for that he was not actually deposed by God before, plainly appears, because not only the people, but even David, after this, owned him as king. Those are unworthy to rule over men, who are not willing that God should rule over them.  (John Wesley)

Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord — Saul was either blinded by a partial and delusive self-love, or he was, in his declaration to Samuel, acting the part of a bold and artful hypocrite. He professed to have fulfilled the divine command, and that the blame of any defects in the execution lay with the people. Samuel saw the real state of the case, and in discharge of the commission he had received before setting out, proceeded to denounce his conduct as characterized by pride, rebellion, and obstinate disobedience. When Saul persisted in declaring that he had obeyed, alleging that the animals, whose bleating was heard, had been reserved for a liberal sacrifice of thanksgiving to God, his shuffling, prevaricating answer called forth a stern rebuke from the prophet. It well deserved it - for the destination of the spoil to the altar was a flimsy pretext - a gross deception, an attempt to conceal the selfishness of the original motive under the cloak of religious zeal and gratitude."  (JFB comm)
Corresponding references: ​witchcraft: Heb. divination, Exo_22:18; Lev_20:6, Lev_20:27; Deu_18:10-11; Isa_8:19, Isa_19:3; Rev_22:15
​stubbornness: 2Co_6:16; Gal_5:20; Rev_21:8
thou hast rejected: 1Sa_2:30, 1Sa_13:14, 1Sa_16:1; 2Ki_17:15-20; 1Ch_28:9

Samuel was deeply moved when he heard of Saul’s failure, “and he cried unto the Lord all night.” Thus he was prepared to accost the sinful king. Mr. Finney tells of a minister who was so burdened with the souls of men that he could do but little preaching, his whole time and strength being given to prayer. It is only in that spirit that men like Samuel can undertake their solemn duty.
Saul’s response was very unsatisfactory. He began by laying the blame on the people, 1Sa_15:21.
1Sa 15:21  But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal. 
He pretended that the object of sparing the cattle, etc., was to sacrifice them to God-a very hypocritical excuse, 1Sa_15:22.
1Sa 15:22  And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. 
​Without any deep consciousness of sin, he lightly professed sorrow, and hoped to pacify Samuel by asking that they might kneel together in worship, 1Sa_15:25. When the old prophet refused to let him off so easily, the only thing that Saul cared for was that the elders should still honor him, 1Sa_15:30.
1Sa 15:30  Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God. 
​How hardened Saul had become. This was the beginning of the sin unto death.  ​(F.B. Meyer)

​Related verses: