The Heart of a Warrior: Basic TrainingSample

DAY 9: Guard Your Heart and Love One Another

Above all else, guard your heart… at all times (Proverbs 4:23)

If your heart is broken, you need healing before you can re-enter the battle for the hearts of others. When someone operates from their false self, don’t take it personally and don’t pronounce judgments on them. They are going through healing and training as well. Just be the Beloved. Warriors Live and Love from a good heart. Jesus said to his apprentices,

You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. Matthew 5:8 (MSG)

Now with a good heart, we are equipped to step into what we were made for… Love. There is no greater life-giving thing than love, especially when a man says it or does it. Nothing against the feminine heart and their capacity to love…oh, how wonderfully they bear God’s image! But men, fathers, husbands, brothers… when we love… it alters things. When we love we are saying, “I see you, you belong, I choose you, I love what I see!” Love is full of acceptance, significance, worth, belonging and validation for a wanting and weary heart! And because it matters so much when men love, we see the enemy target men’s hearts in attempt to ensure that they won’t. A.W. Tozer wrote,

The Christian need not expect to escape opposition. As long as Satan stands to resist the sons of God, as long as the world and the flesh remain, the believing man will meet opposition. Sometimes it will be sharp and obvious, but mostly it will be just the hidden and unsuspected friction set up by circumstances. No one need be anxious about this, however, for God has figured it in and made allowance for it.

Jesus expands The Greatest Command when He instructs his friends before he leaves…

I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father. John 15:11-15 (MSG)

This is what the battle is ALL about. It is our battle cry; our pledge of allegiance; it is the song written on our hearts to sing. Love is what we were made for and in love He restores us… in order for His men to first receive and experience Him and then offer Him. Love, not just training us up in it but turning us into love… this is the Kingdom family business. It will take some training up and then, it will take everything we have and everything we are as men to protect it and see it done. Love won’t happen without a fight. “He became like us so we could become like Him!” It was author, George Eliot, who wrote, “It’s never too late to be what you could have been.” It’s all about Love. We have unfortunately experienced it so conditionally most of our lives that the move to unconditional is going to be significant, drastic and critical. A man can’t just buckle down and do this. Love is something that happens to him and then settles his heart. What does it look like? Jesus showed us and Paul wrote it down. Think of it as the Resume of Jesus!

Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (MSG)

There is a reason this passage is read so often at weddings. Our bridegroom, Christ, is committed to loving this way and is inviting us to follow his lead in the great romance amidst the Great battles in this fallen place. There is more training and more glory ahead. When we are responsible with what has been given, more is given. For the more!!!

This Heart of a Warrior Men’s Devotional Series is comprised of excerpts and quotes from The Heart of a Warrior book. To learn more about the book and for other resources visit The Heart of a Warrior | Michael Thompson