BATTLE READY

READ THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU TAKE ON YOUR NEXT

CHALLENGE
Before you enter any battle be it spiritual, ministry, business and
finance, marriage, etc., consider the following;
Before Israel went to war:
Sought for divine sanction via Urim or Thummim. Judges 1:,
20:2, 27, 28; 1 Samuel 14:37; 23:3
On the other hand, through an acknowledged prophet. 1 Kings
22:6; II Chronicles 18:5.
On field of war, divine aid sought by bringing Ark of Covenant.
Spies sent to ascertain the character of the enemy, strengths
and weakness. Numbers 13:17; Joshua 2:1; Judges 7:10; 1
Samuel 26:4.
Deut. 20:1-20 (KJV)
When thou goest out to battle against thine enemies, and seest
horses, and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of
them: for the Lord thy God is with thee, which brought thee up out of
the land of Egypt. [2] And it shall be, when ye are come nigh unto the
battle, that the priest shall approach and speak unto the people, [3]
And shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel, ye approach this day unto
battle against your enemies: let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do
not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them; [4] For the Lord
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your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your
enemies, to save you.
[5] And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man
is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him
go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man
dedicate it. [6] And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and
hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house,
lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it. [7] And what man
is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go
and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man
take her. [8] And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and
they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let
him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as
well as his heart. [9] And it shall be, when the officers have made an
end of speaking unto the people, that they shall make captains of the
armies to lead the people.
[10] When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then
proclaim peace unto it. [11] And it shall be, if it make thee answer of
peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is
found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
[12] And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against
thee, then thou shalt besiege it: [13] And when the Lord thy God hath
delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with
the edge of the sword: [14] But the women, and the little ones, and
the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt
thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies,
which the Lord thy God hath given thee. [15] Thus shalt thou do unto
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all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the
cities of these nations. [16] But of the cities of these people, which the
Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth: [17] But thou shalt utterly destroy them;
namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath
commanded thee: [18] That they teach you not to do after all their
abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin
against the Lord your God.
[19] When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war
against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing
an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not
cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in
the siege: [20] Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not
trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt
build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be
subdued.

Have the right value system

Are your values for temporary things or eternal values?
God always honours principles based on His word

Deal with fear

Fear- negative and positive aspects
Spreads like a plague
1. IF YOU LISTEN TO YOUR FEARS, YOU WILL NEVER KNOW
WHAT A PERSON YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN ROBERT
SCHULLER
He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day
surmount a fear.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher.
Society and Solitude, "Courage" (1870).

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear
itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), U.S. Democratic politician,
president. Speech, 2 July 1932,

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and
reasoning as fear.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish philosopher, statesman. The Origin of
our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, pt. 2, ch. 2 (1756).

The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care.

F. H. Bradley (1846-1924), English philosopher. Aphorisms, no. 63

(1930).
32.

TOO MANY OF US ARE NOT LIVING OUR DREAMS

BECAUSE WE ARE LIVING OUR FEARS LES BROWN.

39.

TAKING A NEW STEP, UTTERING A NEW WORD IS WHAT

PEOPLE FEAR MOST FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY.

187. IF YOU LISTEN TO YOUR FEARS, YOU WILL NEVER KNOW
WHAT A PERSON YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN ROBERT
SCHULLER
205. "YOU GAIN STRENGTH, COURAGE AND CONFIDENCE BY
EVERY EXPERIENCE IN WHICH YOU REALLY STOP TO LOOK
FEAR IN THE FACE. YOU MUST DO THE THING YOU THINK YOU
CANNOT DO." ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

295. DO WHAT YOU FEAR MOST AND YOU CONTROL FEAR

TOM HOPKINS.

For cowards the road of desertion should be left open; they will

carry over to the enemy nothing, but their fears.

John Christian

Bovee (1820-1904, American author, lawyer)

Attitudes
Attitude is everything
May spell the difference between life and death
Attitudes can be learnt and unlearnt
Attitudes of Gideons three hundred

Since the human body tends to move in the direction of its

expectations -- plus or minus -- it is important to know that attitudes of

confidence and determination are no less a part of the treatment
program than medical science and technology.
Norman Cousins (1915-1990, American editor, humanitarian, author)

Courage
God cannot use a discouraged person Billy Graham
Be strong and very courageous three times to Joshua Joshua 1.
God had to deal with his fears we also must deal with ours
The surety of His promises
Courage is a choice
Courage: True courage is like a kite; a contrary wind raises it higher. John Petit-Senn, French Poet.

Courage: Nothing will come of nothing; we must dare mighty

things. - William Shakespeare

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15.

YOU CAN TELL HOW BIG A PERSON IS BY WHAT IT TAKES

TO DISCOURAGE HIM.

91.

IT TAKES A LOT OF COURAGE TO SHOW YOUR DREAMS

TO SOMEONE ELSE. ERMA BOMBECK.

128. A LOT OF PEOPLE DO NOT MUSTER THE COURAGE TO
LIVE THEIR DREAMS BECAUSE THEY ARE AFRAID TO DIE LES
BROWN. CONSULTANT, CENTRE FOR COMMUNICATION, NEW
YORK.
Brave men are all vertebrates; they have their softness on the surface
and their toughness in the middle.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Tremendous Trifles,
"The Prehistoric Railway Station" (1909)
But screw your courage to the sticking-place
And we'll not fail.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English dramatist, poet. Lady
Macbeth to Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 1, sc. 7, exhorting him to carry
out the murder of Duncan.

Courage charms us, because it indicates that a man loves an idea

better than all things in the world, that he is thinking neither of his
bed, nor his dinner, nor his money, but will venture all to put in act the
invisible thought of his mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher.
Journals (1909-1914), entry in 1859.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is

always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
Samuel Johnson (1709-84), English author, lexicographer. Quoted in:
James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 11 June 1784 (1791).

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire

to live taking the form of a readiness to die.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British author. Orthodoxy, ch. 6 (1909).
Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at
the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), British author. Quoted in: Cyril Connoly,The
Unquiet Grave, pt. 3 (1944; rev. 1951).

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear- not absence of fear.

Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is
brave; it is merely a loose application of the word. Consider the flea!incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of
fear were courage.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), U.S. author. Pudd'nhead Wilson, ch. 12,
"Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894).

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace,

The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things.
Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), U.S. aviator, author. "Courage" (1927;
published in Mary S. Lovell, The Sound of Wings, ch. 1, 1989).

Grace under pressure.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), U.S. author. New Yorker (30 Nov.
1929). Definition of "guts." The formula was adopted by John F.
Kennedy at the start of his collection of essays, Profiles of Courage
(1956); it possibly originated in the Latin motto, Fortiter in re, suaviter
in modo.

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be

capable of doing with the world looking on.

Franois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-80), French writer,

moralist. Sentences et Maximes Morales, no. 216 (1678).

The French courage proceeds from vanity- the German from phlegmthe Turkish from fanaticism & opium- the Spanish from pride- the
English from coolness- the Dutch from obstinacy- the Russian from
insensibility- but the Italian from anger.
Lord Byron (1788-1824), English poet. Letter, 31 Aug. 1820, to
publisher John Murray (published in Byron's Letters and Journals,
vol. 7, ed. by Leslie A. Marchand, 1973-81).

Persistence/Perseverance
Joshua in the battle of Ai

Joshua 8:18 (KJV)

And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy
hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched
out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city.

Joshua 8:25-26 (KJV)

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And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women,
were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. [26] For Joshua drew
not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had
utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai.

God Almighty hates a quitter.

Samuel Fessenden (1847-1908), U.S. lawyer, politician. Speech,
June 1896, Republican National Convention, St. Louis, Mo.

Neither evil tongues,

Rash judgements, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet. Lines Written a Few
Miles Above Tintern Abbey.

Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their
weight of cleverness.
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), English biologist. "On Medical
Education," address, 1870, at University College, London (published
in Collected Essays, vol. 3, 1893).

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Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have
only to persevere to save yourselves.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, writer. First
wartime address, 4 Sept. 1914, Guildhall, London.

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start
over.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), U.S. author. The Crack-Up,
"Notebook E" (ed. by Edmund Wilson, 1945).

PERSEVERANCE: No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat

admission in a thousand years. Lord Alfred Tennyson, British poet.
Perseverance: It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when
you're tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired. Robert Strauss
Perseverance: Lots of people limit their possibilities by
giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for
me. It's no use. I can't go on. If you do you're licked,
and by your own thinking too. Keep believing and keep
on keeping on.- Norman Vincent Peale, American
Christian Reformed pastor and author.

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 Perseverance;
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud:
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
W. E. Henley (1849-1903), English poet, critic, editor. Invictus: In
Memoriam R. T. Hamilton Bruce.
Perseverance
Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the
ability to start over. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), U.S.
author. The Crack-Up, "Notebook E" (ed. by Edmund
Wilson, 1945).

Boldness
boldness (noun)
courage: defiance of danger, boldness, hardihood, audacity, rashness
insolence:

audacity,

hardihood,

boldness,

effrontery,

chutzpa,

shamelessness, brazenness, brass neck, blatancy, flagrancy

Pro. 28:1 The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous
are bold as a lion.

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Mr 15:43 Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor, which also

waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate,
and craved the body of Jesus.

Strategy
Our strategies are not carnal 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Between strategy and character choose character Schwarzkopf
LEADERSHIP IS A POTENT COMBINATION OF CHARACTER
AND STRATEGY.

IF YOU MUST BE WITHOUT ONE, BE

WITHOUT STRATEGY. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work
great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he
first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other
employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of
that same plan his sole study and business.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), U.S. statesman, writer. Autobiography,
ch. 7 (written 1771-90; published 1868).
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but
planning is indispensable.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), U.S. general, Republican
politician, president. One of Eisenhower's favorite maxims. Quoted by
Richard Nixon in: Six Crises, "Krushchev" (1962).

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Character
Talent will take you to the top, but only character can keep you there
Character of winning teams not over till its over

Adversity
Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness- a harsh nurse, who
roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), U.S. poet, editor. Speech, 15
Dec. 1851.

Character
A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;- read it forward,
backward, or across, it still spells the same thing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), U.S. essayist, poet, philosopher.
Essays, "Self-Reliance" (First Series, 1841).

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the
character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.
William

James

(1842-1910),

U.S.

psychologist,

philosopher.

Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, ch. 4 (1890).

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Pity the man who has a character to support- it is worse than a large
family- he is silent poor indeed.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author,
naturalist. Journal, (1906), entry for 28 April 1841.

The best index to a person's character is (a) how he treats people

who can't do him any good, and (b) how he treats people who can't
fight back.
Abigail Van Buren (b. 1918), U.S. columnist. Dear Abby, syndicated
newspaper column (16 May 1974).

The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral
reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are
thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do
they have to fall back on their reserves.
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Russian revolutionary. Diary in Exile,
(1959), entry for 5 April 1935.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes
it easier to stoop the next time.
Katharine Hepburn (b. 1909), U.S. actor. Quoted in: Los Angeles
Times (24 Nov. 1974).

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Let the others have the charisma. I've got the class.
George Bush (b. 1924), U.S. Republican politician, president. Quoted
in: Guardian (London, 3 Dec. 1988), said in California during
presidential campaign.

31.

CHARACTER IS POWER BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

57.

THE LAW OF HARVEST IS TO REAP MORE THAN YOU

SOW. SOW AN ACT, AND YOU REAP A HABIT. SOW A HABIT AND
YOU REAP A CHARACTER. SOW A CHARACTER AND YOU REAP
A DESTINY. - JAMES ALLEN
88.

CHARACTER IS WHAT YOU KNOW YOU ARE, NOT WHAT

OTHERS THINK YOU HAVE. MARVA COLLINS

141. SURMOUNTING DIFFICULTY IS THE CRUCIBLE THAT

FORMS CHARACTER ANTHONY ROBBINS
179. HABITS CHANGE INTO CHARACTER OVID.
186. LEADERSHIP IS A POTENT COMBINATION OF CHARACTER
AND STRATEGY. IF YOU MUST BE WITHOUT ONE, BE WITHOUT
STRATEGY. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF

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DESTINY: Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action;

actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our
destiny.- TYRON EDWARDS, AMERICAN THEOLOGIAN.

Sacrifice
David and Eleazar fighting for barley field
Abstinence
Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Quoted in:
Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde, ch. 24 (1918).

Abstinence
Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human
natur'.
Charles Dickens (1812-70), English novelist. Mr. Squeers, in Nicholas
Nickleby, ch. 5 (1838-39).

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
Dorothy Day (1897-1980), U.S. religious leader. Quoted in: Time
(New York, 29 Dec. 1975).

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With renunciation life begins.

Amelia Barr (1831-1919), Anglo-American novelist. All the Days of My
Life, ch. 9 (1913).

Causes
To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose
everything else.
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (b. 1947), Northern Irish politician. The
Price of my Soul, Preface (1969).

Martyrdom
Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every
drop of my blood . . . will contribute to the growth of this nation and to
make it strong and dynamic.
Indira Gandhi (1917-84), Indian politician, prime minister. Speech, 30
Oct. 1984, in Delhi on the eve of her assassination by Sikh militants.

If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to
live.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68), U.S. clergyman, civil rights leader.
Speech, 23 June 1963, Detroit, Mich.

Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by
God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
Bishop Hugh Latimer (1485-1555), English churchman, Protestant
martyr. Said 16 Oct. 1555 to Bishop Nicolas Ridley at their execution
pyre in Oxford.

A man must be sacrificed now and again

To provide for the next generation of men.
Amy Lowell (1874-1925), U.S. poet. A Critical Fable, st. 2.

He who never sacrificed a present to a future good or a personal to a

general one can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.
Olympia Brown (1835-1900), U.S. minister (first woman ordained in
U.S.). Sermon,
Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall
have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it,
struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or
country fill his heart.

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Antoine de Saint-Exupry (1900-1944), French aviator, author. Flight

to Arras, ch. 23 (1942).

There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.

Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923), South African author.

Passion for a Vision something to live for, something

to die for
If a man has not found this, he is not fit to live Go to passion quotes

Vision
Without that you perish

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