Challenging Challenges – What’s Worth Dying For?

One of favorite novels of all time is Charles Dickens A TALE OF TWO CITIES. In it he describes the horrors & inequities of the French Revolution (1789-1799). But it is also a story of love and nobility. Without getting too deeply into the plot, Sydney Carton switches places with Charles Darnay so that he is the one who is executed by guillotine, thus saving Darnay. In Dicken’s novel his last words are—

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

So the question we each need to think about is— What’s worth dying for?

Julius Caesar’s vision for a Roman Empire led to his murder. Jesus’ proclamation that He was God led to His crucifixion. Mahatma Gandhi’s fight for India’s independence led to his assassination. Martin Luther King Jr’s cry for racial justice also led to his assassination.

Let’s tighten the question. What, who, would you die for?

I would die for my wife, our children, my friends, and, if necessary, even a stranger. I would die for my faith in Christ.

But maybe this is the wrong question. What’s worth living for? might be more to the point. What you would live for you would also die for, of course. But how you live is as important, if not more so, than what you would die for.

Some challenges— Are your beliefs serving a higher calling? A greater purpose? Do you live with a purpose? Or do you simply wait for whatever comes along?

Are you guiding those around you? How? Are you leaving behind a legacy, a reason for the next generation to come alive? How are you training younger believers to live their faith in their way in their culture? All followers of Christ are called to do this.

What’s worth dying for? I would hope you would have a long list.

Greater love has no one than this; that someone lay down his life for his friend.

~ John 15:13

In these crazy days, please, think about what you’re living for: and what’s worth dying for. If it is just yourself, you might want to reconsider that.

Honor God, honor people, make a difference,

Gary

Dr. Gary Davis, President

NEXT— Cancer

Challenging Challenges – Fighting God

Nooooo! Not the Greek God of Thunder. Definitely NOT Chris Hemsworth. THAT would be a simple feat.

Fighting the real God of the Universe is somewhat more of a challenge. Actually, it’s just a plain bad idea. Stupid too.

But far too many of us do it consistently. We reject His principles for living; we reject His perimeters of protection; we fight His offer of salvation; and we reject His offer of manifold gifts and blessings. What is wrong with us?!?

This is a fight we cannot win that has dire consequences. But fight on we do!

We truly believe God will take away all our fun, box us in to become a charming, conservative package, and make “nice” people out of us. Yet, seemingly, we seek to return to our barbarous pillage & plunder days, adhering to no code but our own, if it’s even a code at all.

There are some advantages in fighting God. We get to write our own principles for behavior, based on what we want. We get to live outside His perimeters of protection for us and sin boldly. We are free to deny His offer of salvation and place ourselves above all others with, supposedly, no consequences for our actions. We are free to define our own happiness, snubbing any and all miracles He might want to grant us. Is this what you really want?

However, we are all still called to make a difference for good in this world. We are encouraged to bring peace between desperate factions. And we are summoned to love other people. So what do we really gain by fighting God? He is our one reliable source of strength and safety. Are our individual rights, our personal freedom able to protect us as much as He does?

I often ask people What is God designing you for in the next phase of your life? Do you know?

Or this question from James 4:1-3 [erv]

4 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that make war inside you. ²You want things, but you don’t get them. So you kill and are jealous of others. But you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God. ³Or when you ask, you don’t receive anything, because the reason you ask is wrong. You only want to use it for your own pleasure.

Isn’t it time for each of us to take time to examine our own wars with God? Seriously, what is worth fighting God for?

Honor God, honor people, make a difference,

Gary

Dr. Gary Davis, President

NEXT— What’s worth dying for?

…of bed-boards and springboards

At this moment I am sitting by my mother’s side as she lies on a bed dying. She always preferred her bed to be on the firmer side. Not too much so, but sufficiently so. Bed-boards always make a soft bed so much more comfortable. She lies on such a bed at this moment. Not that it matters to her that much. She is in pain, breathing with some degree of difficulty.

She is leaving us.

Yet as she lies in this bed, she is also taking her first steps onto a springboard. This will be her launching step into a world filled with glory, golden light, and the exuberance of a new life, peace, and rest for a weary traveler. Each of us, unquestionably, will come to this point. The only questions are when, where, and how? Will it be gentle, rough? Drawn out, or quick? Surrounded by friends & family; or alone?

Though we may wish it, this is not the case for everyone. The springboard does not always launch to a place of celebration—rather, it shatters, plunging its load into an abyss of captivity. It is a dark place where people can avoid each other; a place where they will finally get what they truly want—a world of total independence, with no responsibility to care for others. It is a world devoid of God, His love, and His perimeters of protection set in motion on this planet to guard its inhabitants from self-destruction. In this underworld those safe-guards do not exist.

It is now late into the night. I sit here alone with my mother…, waiting for her to take that initial leap from a springboard, propelling her into that new, exhilarating, vibrant life. For that has been her life’s desire, “to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

For some of my friends, my dear close friends, this is not their desire. Their desire is to have all that this world has to give them. And that is what they will receive.

I weep for them.

Sitting here, I am envious that my mother, so much the gracious servant during her time in this realm, will soon get to play and dance and sing in the courtroom of heaven. There’s just the matter of this human shell to discard.

It is true; we all will come to that point of crossing-over. For my mother, it will be from a bed-board to a springboard, to life. When our time comes to step up onto the springboard, what will be our next step? Where will we come down? And what must we do beforehand to prepare?

[On Saturday, January 19^th, 2013, at 1:57 p.m., Florence Adelaine Andersen Davis, jumped into the arms of our heavenly Father; there to celebrate His glory forever. She was 97 years old, by our reckoning. I am soooooo jealous.]

Following in the family footsteps,

Gary

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