When I was a kid, I went through a period where Tour of Duty was my favorite show - by far! It was about a Platoon of men in the Vietnam War. On one episode I remember vividly, one grunt named "Baker" met up with his brother who were both serving in different Army Infantry Units. Anyone who has brothers as I have one, can relate to how they had petty fights with each other and each picked on the other for weaknesses they observed in each other, as all men do in locker rooms and such.
Things to wrong at one point, and the visiting brother ends up captured by the Viet Cong. Baker is obsessed to free his brother, and he does so heroically with the help of his buddies. This episode moved me even as a teenage boy as I worried for the captured brother and related so closely with their love for each other as I did with my own brother, two years my junior. When he managed to free his brother after much danger, effort, and pain there was such a tender moment as they hugged. I remember the frog in my throat and fighting back tears. It moved me because not only of my own brotherly love for my sibling, but because it was showing me, a then lost teenager, what Jesus does and in fact did for me later on: He pursued me, He rescued me from the Enemy.
In these tough times that may remain so, let us refresh our bonds with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Some are snared, some are taken hostage by the enemy though still soldiers for the King of course, they may need a Platoon of Saints to go rescue them as the Body of Christ.
The world will know we are followers of Jesus by this love, dedication, and selflessness and the world will also know from this, that Jesus was sent by the Father according to John 17.
Who will you rescue?
"Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." -1 John 3:16