What does Rambo Do?

The other day I was going to send someone a verse which I had hoped would be an encouragement and a blessing. Well, I thought I knew the verse and would be able to find it easily enough by utilizing the concordance in the back of my bible or some other similar reference guide. I began to look up key words that I thought were in the verse and to my utter dismay, was unable to find this verse after almost 2 hours of searching. Ok, for all you writers out there, I will now attempt to explain the title of this post. Rambo is one of my favorite characters that Sylvester Stallone plays and he has many sequels... Rambo, Rambo 1, Rambo 2, Rambo 3and I think it goes on to Rambo 55 where he is the bouncer in a nursing home. LOL . The Rambo character is "Machismo" to the max along with his other, and even more infamous role of Rocky which also has sequels numbering 1-35(I think); but in the latter Rocky films I really must confess that I was not quite as enthralled when I saw him in the ring with his walker. Forgive me for the digression, and now let me address something of importance.

In most of the Rambo films, before he is about to have rain down hurt on his enemies you will find him sharpening his huge combat knife. Why? I think Hollywood loves heroes with handling big sharp knives and making you see how he is ready to "Rumble" with the bad guys. If I haven't lost you, here is the point.  When I could not find the verse I so wanted to share, I felt like my sword was in need of some serious sharpening.

Can you imagine going into battle with a dull sword, or even worse, a sword scabbard that was rusted and dirty prohibiting you from even getting to use it because it was stuck. Survival depended almost entirely on the condition of the equipment and the skill of the soldier using it. Either one of these two critical prerequisites for battle would, in all likely hood cause a quick exit from a battle due to a death...Yours. Conversely, the better skills a soldier attained and the utmost care given to the condition of his weapons yielded a much more positive result...Death, but Not Yours. In a spiritual sense, I think this is just as, if not more, critical for a Christian.

The sword mentioned in Ephesians 6: is the only offensive weapon that is used in the suiting up for battle of a spiritual soldier. The sword  of the Spirit which is the Word of God is to be skillfully used and utmost care given to its battlefield readiness. Just as the real soldiers very existence depended on the skill and condition of his armor, we as believers must be skillful in the word and the condition it has in our lives. That is to say that our Sword of the Spirit condition is the receptivity and deep roots of God's word in our heart. Our spiritual survival is directly related to these to vital concepts and it behooves us to follow Rambo's and the soldier's example in Ephesians by being fully battle ready at all times.