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This is an army that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day, its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great “well done” of faithful sons and daughters.

What does it look like to lay down my life for the cause of Christ–the Kingdom of God?

It starts with a mindset that I am not my own. (1 Corinthians 6:19) I have been bought with a price, so my entire being belongs to God. Laying down my life only costs me the illusion that it was my life to give in the first place. He owns me, in the most beautiful way possible, and I want to cooperate with his ownership in every way I can.

For me, in my day to day safe little American life, literally sacrificing my lifeblood isn’t much of a possibility. But I want my life to be a sacrifice, not just my death. My life is my every moment, every choice. It’s sacrificing my time, my convenience, my comfort, to allow God’s love to flow through me.

It’s embracing humility.

Humility is so foreign to human nature. We naturally make our lives about “looking out for number one.” Embracing humility is perhaps the most counter-cultural thing we could do, but it’s perhaps the number one way to be like God.

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
(Philippians 2:3-11, emphasis added)

Jesus chose to lose in the most dramatic way possible. He who is El Elyon, God Most High, came so low to wash our feet.

God has honoured him for it, and he will also honour us for following Jesus’ example. I have a hard time imagining anything more beautiful.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
(Matthew 5:5)

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”
(1 Peter 5:6)