Called to the Front: Fighting Life's Battles Equipped with the Whole Armor of God

By Donald E. Carter Jr.

My life took a sudden, unexpected change on June 10, 2002. For this event to occur at that time, on that day, at that moment in my life just didnt seem like the right thing to be happening. But it is from that experience I was able to glean the title of this book, Called To The Front.
You too have been Called To The Front. Whatever is opposing you right now probably seems to be great and overwhelming. You may be wondering if you can prevail against this challenge. My words to you today are, Be encouraged.
I invite you to walk with me through the word of God as he speaks in Ephesians 6:10-18. You will discover that where you are right now is not by accident. The front you are on is of Gods choosing. He has called you, prepared you, and placed His confidence in you. God has equipped you with armor: a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, shoes in preparation to proclaim the Gospel, a shield of faith, a helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, his word. Along with these armaments comes the battle plan for combat through prayer. Greater still, God has already clinched your victory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 18, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452089386

Donald E. Carter Jr.

Meet Donald E. Carter, Jr. author of Called To The Front. He is a native of Kansas City, Missouri having grown up in the Wabash Avenue Church of God. At the age of 15, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and served at the church as an usher, choir member, youth leader, mens ministry leader, trustee, and Sunday school teacher. Today Donald worships at the Mount Washington Missionary Baptist Church in Parkville, Missouri where he is a deacon, superintendent of Christian education, and mens ministry leader. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri Kansas City having earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with an emphasis in Finance. He is also passionate about barbeque, whether he is cooking in the backyard or in organized competition, and is a member of the Kansas City Barbeque Society. Donald and his wife LaQuita, have two daughters, Tiffany and Cara.

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Contents

Introduction

Selected And Singled Out

Chapter 1

The Call to Arms

Chapter 2

The Belt of Truth

Chapter 3

Righteousness, Outwardly Covered From Within

Chapter 4

Get Ready to Step and Proclaim Good News

Chapter 5

The All-purpose Cover

of Applied Faith

Chapter 6

Being Identified by the Helmet

Chapter 7

The Sword Speaks for Itself

Chapter 8

The Battle Plan: To Fight the Preyer with Prayer

Chapter 9

Called Up To Active Duty

Chapter 10

Deliver Us From Evil

In Closing

The Rock Solid

Guarantee of Victory

Introduction

Selected And Singled Out

Abraham; Isaac; Jacob; Joseph; Moses; David; Elijah; Job; Daniel; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abnego; John the Baptist; Peter; Paul; and a host of others including the Lord Jesus himself faced this moment. The moment in question is a moment of truth, a moment of destiny, a defining time. There you are in the midst of the crowd when you hear your name. You might even be in the back of the pack. It doesn’t matter; nothing does because now you have been called to the front!

You stand out and you feel alone. All that you are and everything that is within you is being tested right now. You may not feel able or capable of taking on what is staring you in the face, but you know that you must stand up and confront the challenge. The names change as do the circumstances yet the pressure is the same: Pharaoh, Goliath, Jezebel, an accusing crowd, the decision to sacrifice your only son, the den of lions, the fiery furnace heated seven times hotter, or the cross itself. You could choke and attempt to run, but you already know that win or lose, succeed or fail, live or die you must answer the call to the front.

This call is not limited to just those few previously mentioned. In all truth everyone will have that moment in life when we are called to the front. As a matter of fact, don’t count on it just happening only once in your life.

I write this as a result of one of my calls to the front. Hebrews 1:1 tells of how God in times past at various times spoke in divers manners. It could be that He speaks directly, by signs and wonders, through his words in the Bible, through the way a series of events may occur, or by dreams and visions. Well God is eternal and never changing and as for me I can see how he has spoken to me in all of the manners described. I feel my call began with a dream sometime in the spring of the year 2002.

The year began with some changes in my life. January 13th began with me joining another church. After spending the first forty years of my life in one church, I felt lead to move on to a work that had a mission similar to some of the aspirations I had for my own church life. I was happy and excited about the move.

About two weeks later during a major ice storm, another change in my life occurred. As freezing rain fell from the Kansas City skies on the morning of January 31st, my grandmother, Willie Mae Carter, caught a glimpse of the Lord and she followed his parade into glory. On Earth she was a matriarch and a prayer warrior. She was a pillar in the church and the center piece of the Carter family. Her presence is greatly missed, but I hold on to her love, wisdom, unending prayers, teaching, and faith in God. She lived in this life under the principle that there is no situation that prayer can’t handle. Because of this she would get calls from many people from all over the country asking her to pray for them. It was often said, I know the Lord will answer because Sister Willie Mae (or Mother Carter as she was also known) can get a prayer through. So the Lord has called her to the front to claim her reward. I cling to the things of God that she has left behind, to learn from them, grow with them, and to draw closer to God each day.

It was on a day at work some weeks later that I was sitting at my desk reflecting on the changes that had taken place in my life, and I heard these words said out loud and clear, There are more to come. Thinking that my supervisor or an account representative had spoken to me, I looked up and around to see who had said that. I saw no one else in the vicinity. A few nights after that, I had a dream. Actually, I had two.

In my first dream, I saw several of the newly hired workers on my job getting parking spaces in the company garage. Now this is an event as these are limited in number and available only on a seniority basis. I happened to be an employee who already had one of these.

My second dream had me outside gathered with my coworkers for a time. They were all dressed in office attire, but I was dressed in a basketball uniform and warm up; I also had on socks but I didn’t have on any shoes. We were all socializing and having a good time and then everyone started getting up and going away. That is everyone except me. I was still marveling at this basketball uniform and what possibly I might get to do later as my coworkers are saying goodbye and waving. One in particular came up to me and stroked the back of my hand with her pinkie finger, then she smiled and waved goodbye. They all went one way and I alone went another. It now dawned on me that they were going to work but I didn’t feel compelled to do so. I felt like I was heading in a different direction for the day to pursue whatever I wanted but first, I had to get my shoes. I now believe that this dream was prophetic. The basketball uniform could represent my ambitions. After all, there was a time I desired to play professionally in the National Basketball Association (NBA). I believe those missing shoes were showing me that I still needed just one more piece of equipment, maybe preparation, to be ready to play. In reality, I’m over forty years old and I know I will not be playing in the NBA. But I do have other unfulfilled ambitions still yet to achieve and please remember the point about the shoes.

On Sunday evening June 9th, I took my wife to evening worship service at my new church and it just so happened that my wife’s cousin was preaching that night. He preached about Job, how through his ordeal he remained faithful. The main point though was that God was faithful through all that Job endured. When we got home after service, I called my family together and we had a family bedtime prayer. As we prayed, I asked God to help us to be faithful in service and to help us prosper; fulfilling the ambitions we have for ministry and our family. I told my family what I envisioned us as a family accomplishing. Then we all went to bed.

On the morning of June10th, I reported to work as usual and someone had sent me an email titled A Good One. It reads as follows:

A voyaging ship was wrecked during a storm at sea and only two of the men on it were able to swim to a small, desert island. The two survivors, not knowing what else to do, agreed that they had no other recourse but to pray to God. However, to find out whose prayer was more powerful, they agreed to divide the territory between them and stay on opposite sides of the island.

The first thing they prayed for was food. -- The next morning, the first man saw a fruit-bearing tree on his side of the land, and he was able to eat its fruit. The other man’s parcel of land remained barren.

After a week, the first man was lonely and he decided to pray for a wife. -- The next day, another ship was wrecked, and the only survivor was a woman who swam to his side of the land. On the other side of the island, there was nothing.

Soon the first man prayed for a house, clothes, more food. – The next day, like magic, all of these were given to him. However, the second man still had nothing.

Finally, the first man prayed for a ship, so that he and his wife could leave the island. – In the morning, he found a ship docked at his side of the island. The first man boarded the ship with his wife and decided to leave the second man on the island. He considered the other man unworthy to receive God’s blessings, since none of his prayers had been answered.

As the ship was about to leave, the first man heard a voice from heaven booming, Why are you leaving your companion on the island? My blessings are mine alone, since I was the one who prayed for them, the first man answered. His prayers were all unanswered and so he does not deserve anything.

You are mistaken! the voice rebuked him. He had only one prayer, which I answered. If not for that, you would not have received any of my blessings.

Tell me, the first man asked the voice, What did he pray for that I should owe him anything?

He prayed that all your prayers be answered.

For all we know, our blessings are not the fruits of our prayers alone, but those of another praying for us.

--Author Unknown

I forwarded this email around and a few minutes later I received a thank you from a coworker for sharing it. She said she needed it. I replied to her that she was welcome and since she needed that, I would be the man on the barren side of the island, praying that God would answer her prayers. Oh how prophetic what I said would be. She sent me a few words of encouragement and also said she would pray for me. That was my last contact with her for at 1:30 PM that day, I, along with twenty seven others, was called into a meeting and there we were informed that our employment at the company was immediately terminated. My source of income had just dried up. I was now officially on the barren side of the island.

This did not seem to be a fitting answer to the prayer I had just prayed the night before. One other person in my department and I were laid off. However, the meaning and significance of my dreams was starting to come to light. There would be new employees gaining parking garage spaces. Twenty eight spots had just opened up. One of them used to be mine. And yes, I could see many of my now former coworkers would be in office attire and returning to work, while I would be dressed in something else as I had to go another direction to pursue a new endeavor.

God would speak to me again about six weeks later. It would be on the morning of July 25th at 5:10 AM. I remember the time because I was awakened and couldn’t get back to sleep. At about 5:25 AM I decided to do what some of our seasoned saints advised us to do when we couldn’t sleep; get up and pray. It was still early and I didn’t want to disturb anyone in the house, so I went downstairs to pray. I prayed about my circumstances as I was still seeking a new job and some interesting things started to unfold.

While I was in prayer that morning, I got up the nerve to ask God that ever-present, eternal, one word question, Why? Why am I in this situation? I loved my job. I worked hard, there are people I trained that are still employed there. It didn’t seem fair. Now as I was pleading my case, I start to see a helmet, medieval style, with a face visor that flips up and down. This is the type that you see atop a suit of armor. As I kept praying, I kept seeing that same helmet with the face visor that flips up and down. As I continued praying I’m still seeing that helmet and face visor and now I am getting to be annoyed watching that face visor flipping up and down. When I stopped praying, I thought about what I had seen, and the helmet of salvation in Ephesians 6 came to mind. I picked up the nearest Bible I could find, and it happened to be one that had belonged to my late grandmother. It was sitting on my desk downstairs and is written in Today’s English Version as opposed to King James. I have read this passage many times before but not like today. Verse 17 deals with the helmet: And accept salvation as a helmet and the word of God as the sword which the Spirit gives you. I followed up by reading verse 18 about prayer, then I decided to look at the whole passage which is subtitled in this particular Bible as, The Whole Armor of God. Remember, I told you that I didn’t have any shoes on in my dream? Verse 15 reads: …and as your shoes the readiness to announce the Good News of peace. I had to stop there because of my mind triggering back to that dream. The shoes were a key. I then went to my parallel Bible to compare other versions of that verse and discovered the word preparation used instead of readiness in those passages. And while I was in awe of what I had just read and how it seems to fit my dream, I noticed something else. For me, this was earth shaking. The situation that I was praying about began on June 10th, sometimes written 6/10. The passage on The Whole Armor of God starts in Ephesians 6:10! Now Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor and founder of The Potter’s House in Dallas TX, preaches a series titled Nothing Just Happens. In his sermons he relates how the events of life are divinely orchestrated by God according to his will and for his purpose. After hearing this, it causes me to wonder, how is it that I am awakened and led to pray, then see a vision that triggers a memory, a memory that causes me to pick up a Bible, the particular one that had come into my possession by inheritance and happens to be the nearest one on my desk the same day that I can’t get back to sleep and go downstairs to pray. In addition the version of which that Bible is written is conveniently worded to coincide with a symbol in a dream that came to me in the weeks prior to the very life changing event that I am praying about. And don’t forget that the event occurred on a date that has the same numbers as the chapter and verse that refers to the vision of what I saw. Could this all be a coincidence? Not likely. It seems the sequence of all that happened was by order and design. At any rate, I was too overcome to do anything else. God had just spoken to me. It was at that moment I realized that I had just been "Called to The Front".

Chapter 1

The Call to Arms

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers