The Warrior Learns Mercy and the Scribe Learns Physical Discipline Training

Who will teach those soft and plump bureoucrats the lessons of physical discipline and mental training to endure hardship? At least those who love truth have made some effort to discipline their soul and body. Prayer, fasting, bodily exercise as available. Bodily exercise (1st Timothy 4:8) profits little. So scripture does not say there is no gain at all from it, only that what it does gain is small compared to godliness. Godliness is profitable unto all things. All things includes bodily exercise. So he that is soft and weak, let him fully extend faith for godliness in all things that he may experience as much bodily exercise as is appropriate for him, the health of his blood flow, that feeds his mind so he can think more clearly. Just as opium clouds the mind, so does sluggish blood. Ask any oriental who has fasted and meditated and chosen clean food over unclean. Jesus was a carpenter. Let the believers who sit too much on the couch take heed. The life is in the blood, the more oxygenated the blood, the more life there is, as witness what happens when the oxygen depletes. Ask any doctor of the body.

The couch potato can hardly be merciful to his enemies unless he has an army of warriors to enforce his will. The couch potato can surrender to his enemies or he can die. Often he surrenders saying peace , peace. He often cloakes his surrender falsely in the name of humility and submission and peace, and "give unto others what they ask".... and hides his weakness falsely under a cloak of false spirituality.

But would he surrender if he knew how to win over his enemies?

Mercy is more likely to be mercy when a warrior shows it than when a coward takes no action.

People are quick to want the warrior to learn the ways of mercy. Many ignorantly say war is evil.
But war is waged by the righteous to overcome evil. Overcome evil with good. War is the way of getting your way out of someone who wants another way.
War can be waged with economics, words, or deeds. War is simply an adverserial action. It is whatever you are doing to maintain your own against someone who is trying to decrease you.

If you submit, then you avoid war. It is good to submit to what is right, but it is an abomination for the righteous to fall down before the wicked.
So there will be no war when the younger submits to the elder in a family, but when the younger rebells and pulls his own tactics to keep his own way, then that is a war when the parent responds as in Romeo and Juliet to prevent the younger from fullfilling his will.

When a child is doing one thing, and the parent says do another, then these things can happen:
1. The child can submit to the will of the parent. See what Jesus did in Luke 2:39-52
2. The child can rebell against the will of the parent.

How can two walk together unless they be agreed? Scripture asks this question. Jesus must have determined in his heart to be the will of God for Him to obey his mother and father. Then I am sure He was wise to take delight in doing the will of His heavenly Father, in obeying His earthly father and mother. So we too, must realize it is our greatest good, our best end, to obey God, and thus to take joy and delight in doing His will. Like working in a wheat field, the diligent worker learns to love his work and love doing it right, not skipping stalks to jump to the finish in a false way. We can love our work because it gives us the wherewithall to get those other things we so desire. Understanding this and doing it is a corner stone of successful living with contentment and peace and joy.

"I delight to do Thy will, O Lord.", King David said. And it is a good thing for us to say and do.

When a child refuses to heed parent's instruction the following things can happen.
1. The parent can let it be. ( a very powerful thing to do sometimes) In which case there is rebellion but no war. Since the superior authorities took no action to enforce their will against the rebellion.
2. The parent can take action to enforce his will. Either offering punishment for disobedience or reward for obedience or some combination or other action to gain his way.

It is good to know when to let things be. Just let it be. Instead of taking action to change something. Sometimes that is the right choice to make.

When mercy is taught by one who cannot war, then often a false mercy is taught. God can war, and God can be merciful. He will show mercy to whom He will. It is because He is capable of performing war to maintain His will, that His mercy is true when it is given. Those who cannot enforce their own will, may do outwardly what some call humility or even submission, or mercy, but when they have no power to do otherwise, it is not any of those, but rather it is only their only option.

When the weak soul is mocked by a stronger who has raped his daughter, and the stronger says, "O come now, forgive me and let's be friends." And that weak soul plays along for his own life, that is not mercy and forgiveness but rather fear and falling down before the wicked.

It is a higher form of war to gain your way without resorting to physical fighting, as when Bruce Li invited the man into the boat so they could sail to an island to settle the man's desire to fight against Bruce. Then after the man got into the small boat, Bruce simply released the boat from it's tie down, and let the man be separated from the ship where Bruce stood. In the story, a man came upon Bruce Li on a ship and taunted him to fight and would not stop pushing for a fight. The man asks Bruce Li what was his style of fighting. Bruce responded, You could say my style is overcoming your enemies without having to fight. Bruce tried to get the man to stop pushing for a fight but the man insisted, so Bruce said, this ship has no place for us to fight. See that island over there, we could get in this small boat and sail to that island where there is room enough for the fight. The man looked at the island, and at the boat tied to the side of the ship on which they stood, and agreed to go to the island for their fight. Bruce invited his antagonist to go first into the boat and said he would untie it from the mother ship so they could sail. "You go ahead down into the sail boat and hold it to the ship while I untie it and then climb down into it. The man went down into the small sail boat and Bruce Li followed a few steps, then stopped to untie the boat, and after the man was seated in the sailboat, Bruce let the rope have slack to tow the sail boat at a great length behind the mother ship. Thus Bruce overcame his enemy without resorting to physical fighting. He used his brain and what was available and caused the would-be attacker to be removed from him.

Our choices determine our actions.
Our beliefs and wants (part of our beliefs) determine our choices.
God commands us to choose life and not death, that we may live and not die.
To choose blessing and not cursing, that we may be blessed.
Actions begin with the heart belief.
As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.