heaven's tree book club

September 24, 2012
The Dogs of Doom Stand at the Doors of Destiny
There was a moment in WWE's final moments I had wanted to skip to sleep early. It was the interview with John Cena. He had gotten elbow surgery the previous Tuesday and was in no condition to wrestle. He didn't know when his return would be. Z. M. Punk came out to confront him and threatned to hurt him. As we know restling in the entertainment style is fake so John with one arm was able to defend himself. The moment for me however was that John did not know when he would recover from his condition but he promised the people that he would meet Punk in Hell in a Cell. This is hope without God, but it is hope nonetheless. John has more faith in himself than I have in my God. Hope as I found out in my devotional on my last day of my graduate seminar is Biblically defined as confident expectation. It is not wishful thinking. I saw John Cena's hope in himself as confident expectation that he will recovery in time for the main event. Of course this is all scripted, but I thought to myself, why don't I have faith like that.
Daniel was messing around with my pedal exerciser today and I got upset. To him he does not understand the concept of buying fitness equiptment all he knows is what he is entertained by. Still, this cost a lot of money, money which I am now very low in. I cannot afford for him to break it. I see that I have very little patience when it comes to things concerning money. If it was not my exerciser or if it was cheap like a pen I wouldn't mind, but something that cost $100, then it is different. I realize that my patience and love was really tested this afternoon. Daniel also woke me up while I was resting. I had already woken up and so I was glad to see him, but I wonder if I would have had the same welcome had I still had been asleep. I realize that I am far from the man I want to be.
"IT was a typical hot August evening in Redding, California. Carolyn was dropping by one of the local clothing stores to get a few things before going home. She found a parking space and maneuvered her vehicle into it. Placing the car in park, she shut off the engine. As she reached over to close the passenger side window, a young man in his early twenties came to the driver's side and yelled,"Get out of the car!" It was then that she realized his arm was inside the car and he was holding a gun to her ribs.
Carolyn, who is a rather quiet, modest woman in her mid-fifties said, "Look, you don't want this car. It doesn't run good, hardly has any gas and the air conditioner doesn't work." Then gesturing toward the gun she said, "What's THIS?" "My gun," he said. Feeling the boldness of the Lord rise within her, she looked him straight in the eye and asked,"What are you going to do with it?" Suddenly his whole body relaxed as if he had been holding his breath, "Nothing," he sighed.
"We need to talk," Carolyn said gently. "You've been set up. God wants you to hear what I have to tell you." He nodded, showing her that the gun wasn't even loaded, and putting it back into his pack. The would-be thief knelt by the car wiiile Carolyn began to talk to him, as a mother would talk to her son, about how much the Heavenly Father loved him. He opened up and poured out his heart, sharing his life's troubles and difficulties with her. She asked if he had been contemplating suicide. He told her that he had written a letter to his parents that very morning about wanting to take his life. She ministered to him for nearly an hour. Placing her hand on his bowed head, she prayed for him, and felt an indescribable love pour through her spirit into him. As amazing as it sounds, it was hard for them to say goodbye to one another. They both wanted to remain immersed in God's presence in an encounter neither of them will ever forget.
Disguised as an everyday housewife, Carolyn is a princess who refused to be intimidated by a thug, and instead, radically altered the course of a young man's life!"
When I read a narrative, I try to imagine the scene and place myself in the passage. What would I do if I was the man or if I was the woman? How would I react? This is a God encounter the man and also the woman felt. There was a tremendous amount of fearlessness and depression that was in the young man to do such a thing but a boldness and compassion of Christ the woman illustrates here. God arranged this encounter for both. This is a mature woman of God who was not afraid and was sure of who she is and sure of who God is. Such people in the church are hard to find but make a tremendous difference in the world.
"People love to hear stories of everyday heroism, but most of us question whether we would have been able to respond so boldly. There are plenty of other stories where people see evil, yet do nothing, caring more to save their own lives rather than living sacrificially.
This survival mentality has no place in the hearts and minds of the sons and daughters of the King. Jesus said, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matt. 16:25).The survival mentality is a finite core value that restricts the impact of our lives to the here-and-now and robs us of the history- making exploits that have been assigned to each of us by God Himself.
Our survival mentality is supposed to be dealt with at baptism. Jesus said,"If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me" (Matt. 16:24). Resurrection life lies on the other side of the crucifixion.To be disciples of Christ we must deal with death head-on. We do this by taking up our cross and following Jesus to the crucifixion at the baptismal tank."
I think no one likes to take up their cross. No one wants to die to self. We are people of self preservation and survival. Yet Christ challenges us to die to self, and to take up our cross and to make history for the kingdom as we see in the opening story here. Self preservation does not save lives and make impact for the kingdom. I admit, I am a self preservationist. By nature, all of us look out for ourselves and our instinct is not to go save whoever is drowning even though for some of us we have a touch on our hearts to do something so we call on someone else.

"Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself [Jesus] likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery1 all their lives (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Just imagine what a whole army of living "dead" people can accomplish when they are no longer intimidated by the grave, but are filled with the boldness of God! Royal people live from eternity and therefore don't view physical death as an end, but as an entrance to a new dimension in God.
When we meet a believer who loves the gift of life yet has no fear of death, we've met a person who is free to really live. I saw this firsthand in my friend, Bob Perry. In 2000 I got pretty sick. There was a chance that I had a serious life-threatening illness, and it paralyzed me with the fear of death. One day I called Bob, who had survived kidney cancer several years before after being told by the doctors that he wasn't expected to live.
I asked him, "Were you ever afraid to die?"
"No!" he said.
"Why not?" 1 asked.
"You can't threaten me with Heaven!" he proclaimed.
"My favorite story to date is that of Chad Dedmon. Chad is a newlywed who recently graduated from BSSM.A few months ago he went into a local supermarket to buy some doughnuts. While he stood in line to pay for his food, he noticed that the woman in front of him was wearing hearing aids. Chad asked her a few questions and found out that she was completely deaf in one ear and 50 percent deaf in the other. He asked if he could pray for her and, with her permission, put his hands on her ears and commanded them to be healed. He then convinced her to take out her hearing aids. She discovered that she was completely healed and could hear perfectly. The lady was crying, and so was the cashier who was observing the whole thing.
Chad asked the cashier if he could get on the loudspeaker and ask other people in the store if he could pray for them, because God had shown him more healings that He wanted to do for other people. The lady agreed and handed him the microphone.
"Attention all shoppers! God just healed this deaf lady." He handed the mic to the lady who had gotten healed and asked her to tell the people what God had done. She shared through her tears and then handed the microphone back to Chad.
Chad said,"God has shown me that there is someone here who has a bad left hip and He wants to heal you. Come to aisle 12 and I will pray for you." He announced several other words of knowledge for healing, and within a few minutes people were gathered around the checkstand. A ladv drove up in an electric cart and said, "I am the one with the left hip problem. I am getting a hip replacement tomorrow."
Chad praved for her and then convinced her to test it by walking. This took awhile as the woman refused to get up and walk. She finally did and then started running, yelling, I am healed, I am healed!"
The encounter ended with two more people getting healed and several people receiving the Lord after Chad preached a message of healing and salvation right there in the store.
Most of us would love to see God move as He did with these students, but if we haven't dealt with our survival mentality, we won't have the strength to step out and grab hold of divine moments of opportunity. When we are afraid, we stay on the porch of our life and we never run with the big dogs! If we take up a defensive posture, we actually yield the position of influence and authority that God has called us to have over the enemy. In the vacuum we leave others who have found a cause worth dying for will rise up with conviction and power from the dark side. Then the great adventure is replaced with a boring and monotonous existence. Fear debilitates us from fighting the good fight that God has called us to. It has been disguised in the Church as "stewardship," "wisdom," and a bunch of other spiritual words, reducing the Christian experience to simply holding the fort. The only convictions that are worth living for are those worth dying for."
"In the last couple of years nearly 2,000 American men and women have died and many more have been -wounded in the war in Iraq. It is sad to hear of the scores of lives that are being taken away every day, but the truth is that everybody is going to die someday. The real question that we should ask ourselves is whether or not we are really living. When we leave this world, will our lives actually have counted for something? The greatest tragedy in our world isn't that so many are dying to protect our freedoms, but that millions are living without any purpose!
America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but what many people have forgotten is that if we were not the home of the brave, we would have never been the land of the free!"

"The ultimate challenge therefore lies not so much in the battle itself but in getting the people of God to join the fray. When the royal army refuses to fight and instead cowers from combat, they are often shot in the back where they are armor-less. Notice that the "armor of God" in Ephesians has no protection for your back. We are ill-equipped for retreat.
"The dogs of doom stand at the doors of our destiny!" What we believe to be our most fearful stumbling block is actually the door to our greatest victory. Our greatest destiny lies on the other side of fear. Courage is the ability to advance in the face of adversity to obtain these treasures.
One of the challenges in getting Christians to engage in war is their lack of appreciation for the values which moved our forefathers to purchase our freedom with their lives. History helps us connect to virtues worth dying for.They stand behind the veil of time, but are our inheritance.They are often clothed with words like"Honor,""Freedom,""Valor," "Loyalty" and "Respect." Our founding mothers and fathers treated these invisible attributes like countries to protect and qualities to pass down to their children. These noble people fought not so much to protect land but to perpetuate the principles of the Kingdom.

 "Courage can be observed in a mother with three children. Her husband's a manic and raging alcoholic. Violence has become a way of life for them. She has been trying to make the marriage work for years, but he doesn't want a wife; he wants a slave that he can drive with fear, and kids that he can torment into submission. He gives her no money and never allows her or the children to have a life. She has no job skills because she never wants to leave the kids alone in the war zone with their out-of-control father. But one day she decides that it is over. She takes the children and they leave, not knowing where they're going but realizing that they can't stay in this slave camp another day. He has threatened her life many times, but she chooses boldness over fear and life over death.They will start fresh and trust God to lead them.
Courage resides in the young woman who goes to a high school where the number of virgins can be counted on two hands. Everyone around her is "doing it," and she feels the peer pressure and the sex drive within her are trying to defeat her. But she has chosen to save herself for her prince. She realizes that the value of her virginity lies in the struggle that it takes to get it from the battlefield to the honeymoon suite, and she is determined to do it.
History is written by these acts of courage. And not one is better than the other. When we refuse to compromise, we become the people that God can trust to carry His glory to the world.
History will record whether or not we, God's people, rise up with valor in this dispensation to perpetuate the royal attributes of our Holy King, or we digress in fear into the cesspool of moral corruption. If we fail, those who record our history will also be caught in the depth of its despair. If we succeed and rise above the mire of the complacency of our peers, we could very possibly leave a legacy that lasts for eternity. We cannot afford to fail! We must dress ourselves in vigilance and run to protect the virtues that have been handed down to us.With so much at stake we must win the most epic of battles!"
Prayer:
Father, this chapter is powerful. These are stories of untold heroes of men and women both young and old of courage in the face of strong opposition. These are stories of princes and princess who know they are royalty and live in light of eternity. These men and women have a powerful witness in the world. We must be women and men who live to protect the virtues of honor, courage, loyalty, and respect. We need to live with kingdom values. Yet, like the opening story, I am a person of self preservation and do not see the God moments that define history. I want to be the man who boldly heals and reaches out to others but I just don't have enough faith. All these men and women have one big thing in common and that is their confidence in You. Tonight, I really struggle to know that You are still God and still good. I want to believe in Your goodness and Godness, but I really struggle this week. My continual prayer is to know that You care because right now, I feel really abandoned by You. Please help me to know that You care and that You still heal and help us today.