Being a good soldier

In 2 Timothy chapters 1 and 2, Paul speaks to Timothy, (his son) and tells him to be a good soldier or servent of Jesus Christ.
He tells Timothy not to get tangled up into the affairs of this life.

Paul spoke of how he suffered persecutions from others, so that he could obtain his salvation. Paul said that as an evildoer....they suffer and they are bound up but when we are in Christ and obey Gods word, then we are not bound up.

Paul told Timothy that if he denied Christ that Christ would deny him in the day of judgement.
He also tells Timothy to study the word of God to show hisself approved and to shun profain and vain babblings because if he listens to these things, it will lead to more ungodliness.

In Verse 16 Paul sais that false words or doctrines will eat at him like a canker ( or gangrene). He tells him not to be decieved by vain talkers because listening to them would overthrow his faith.
Paul also tells him to avoid foolish questions because they cause strifes and arguments.
He instructs Timothy to be gentle to all men and teach them and be patient with them while they are still learning the word of God. He tells him to be meek or patient with the people who resist themselves (or resist the pulling of the Holy Spirit) so that they may repent and that they may recover themselves out of the snares or traps of the devil and they will no longer be taken captive by him.

1 Thes. 4:6 Let your speach be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

The question is....Are we truly being a good soldier of Christ?

How many times to we listen to people argue about matters of the church?
Are we including ourselves in the conflicts that people so easily set themselves in and among?
Do we listen to others when they talk with disbelief about things of the bible? God instructs us to be careful how we hear and what we hear...
Things that are not of God, If we are not careful, will consume us.

I once heard a preacher speak on the radio once and said that he was told by a farmer that he had a barn full of cows and he would go every day and spend hours in the barn, milking the cows....
But what he told this other man was that he could go into the barn and stay with the cows and rub up against them and so on and that he would not smell like them....
But any farmer knows that if you go into the barn with the cows long enough.....Your gonna step into there waste and garbage and rub up against them and eventually, you are going to come out smelling like them too...

So what I am trying to get at is.. If we listen to vain talk long enough, we are eventually going to start talking like them and maybe even thinking like they do... So this causes our faith to fade away and we eventually lose what faith we did have and weve slipped away from God..

This is why Paul warns Timothy to beware of listening to the wrong people.
We need to associate ourselves with other christians so that we may become strong and we can feed off of each others faith as well as help build others faith..

In Thessalonians... It speaks of how we must season our speach..
We must learn to offer answers to those who do not understand and be patient. I often times have gotten aggrivated at certain people for argueing about something in the bible that I knew was right, but this person did not believe because they had been told the opposite by another person..
and no matter how I tried to explain to this person, he/she did not want to listen to what I had to say because he/she said it was right..
I did get aggrivated, and that is not the way we are suppose to be with them.. We are not to get angry with them.. Because it may be that they just do not understand fully about it..
The best thing to do is to be patient and longsuffering and pray for them.
God will do the rest.

Be careful what we put into the mind, because it goes to our hearts and souls and before we know it..........Out of the abundance of the heart... the mouth speaks!