The Necessity of an Enemy

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The Necessity of an Enemy  
By: Ron Carpenter Jr. 

 The Necessity of an Enemy by Ron Carpenter Jr. has been a pure joy to read. I adore a good "pick yourself up by the boot straps" book and Mr. Carpenter delivers. The way he approaches who your enemies are and how you can recognize them for your benefit and the benefit of those around you is inspiring and unique. 

We are all built with a fight or flight instinct when faced with adversities, troubles, or things that seem too overwhelming for us to deal with. All things to work together for the good of those who trust God, and in our trials and tribulations we are refined and perfected.   We are given great examples of biblical people who stood in the face of adversity and fought for the sake of the downtrodden, the helpless, the weak, and ultimately for the kingdom of God. Great people such as David, Moses, Paul, Joseph and Jesus himself who was tempted by Satan, all had to face obstacles of great magnitudes that they felt and knew they could not overcome by themselves so they each leaned on a greater power stronger than anyone could imagine; the power of God. Ron captures this so eloquently in his book, The Necessity of an Enemy. When human nature tells us to run and flee from our enemies, Ron takes a different approach and tells us to run to the enemy. To embrace it and own it! Ron’s theme is basically this: "enemies are indicators, announcements, clues, that there's something great inside you yet to be born."  

Leaning on insights such as all battles are fought for our future and not our past; that the battle you are facing is being used by God to give you insight to your strength and greatness God has instilled inside you, and the one I love the best is that our enemy is our footstool! I just love the imagery in that last one. It springs to mind my greatest obstacles underneath me, with me conquering it, not it conquering me. 

While I read this book I found myself getting kinda angry and worked up. You see Ron has his own enemy he had to deal with and it was a great one that we have all faced at some point in our lives. The enemy is greed; greed looking to take advantage, to manipulate, to destroy and conquer you at any cost.  Ron had to make a choice to face his enemy or run and tuck tail. He chooses to conquer it instead. Ron lost everything to a scam artist. His church, dignity, respect of his flock, the press mocked him, and the people in his own community and church who had loved him and sang of his love for the Lord, now mocked him, wrote hateful letters to him and shunned him. Ron could have given up, but instead he learned to lean on God even more and to now His plan is greater than ours. He used this opportunity to confront his enemy and learn from it, to re-prioritize his life and his ministry. 

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus

Have I  peaked your interest? Do you want to read more? Well I have you covered. Simply click on any of the below links to find out more information on Ron and his book!
or at Amazon on this link:http://www.amazon.com/review/R202AWOXI34F26

"I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review." 




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