The Heroes

Date: 12/7/2010

As we remember what happened at Pearl Harbor on its yearly anniversary, we usually remember all the heroes that were lost, or the ones that lost parts of their body for their country. Many lost family and friends in that devastating attack, but there were losses on both sides. Both Japan and the U.S. lost people in that fight, but each side tends to remember and be concerned about the loss on their side of the fight.

Whether it be Japan or the U.S., each side considers the ones that died for their kingdom to be the heroes. The people of United States don’t consider the Japanese people bombing our ships to be heroes, because they were the enemy. The Japanese don’t consider the United States people that died and fought in that fight to be heroes, because the U.S. was their enemy. From each “kingdom’s” point of view, the heroes are the ones that fought to preserve and expand their kingdom’s way of life. Each kingdom in this fight had their heroes and their enemies, even though the other side’s enemy was the other side’s heroes. How people look at things is always a matter of perspective.

So why are all these people called heroes? They all have something in common. Even today’s war heroes have this same thing in common. The thing they all have in common is that they were willing to sacrifice and leave the comforts of their own homes and fight for their kingdom. They left what they considered the good things of their kingdom and fight to preserve or expand those good aspects of their kingdom for others. The US soldier fights to preserve the freedom and what that soldier thinks is good. The U.S. soldier is also willing to fight to expand this kingdom of freedom to other countries. Each soldier, on each side of the war(s), is willing to give the ultimate sacrifice of their own physical life. They are willing to give up all what they understand to be good in their life and never experience it again, so that their kingdom can expand and/or other people of their kingdom can keep experiencing that good. For instance: even though the Japanese clearly won that fight at Pearl Harbor, all those Japanese pilots knew they would not survive the attack. All these pilots were instructed to release their torpedoes and ammunition and then use their own plane to kamikaze into an enemy ship. They had no plans of returning back to the Japanese ships that they were launched from. From my understanding only a few planes returned back to the ships and the planes were not even equipped to land back on the ships. The Japanese saw Pearl Harbor as a great victory for them, but their heroes knew when they took off from those ships that they would not come back. They died with honor, but never to experience the “good” they were fighting for. Each kingdom fights for what they understand to be good, even though the enemy thinks the enemy’s good is the evil they need to fight. They do this to preserve or expand what they think is good.

Fighting for temporary or eternal kingdoms:

Now, let us put these worldly kingdoms that heroes have sacrificed and died for over the many centuries in perspective. For the most part all these earthly kingdoms are temporary. They are not eternal. There are only two kingdoms that are eternal, which is God’s kingdom and the devil’s kingdom. A person can argue that some of these earthly kingdoms are more evil than good and some are more good than evil, but they are all temporary.

Why is it that people will temporarily or forever give up the things that they see as good in this life and go out and fight to preserve or promote those freedoms and earthly good things and not sacrifice and fight for the eternal good of God’s kingdom? It is sad to say, but many of these heroes that have died for the temporary earthly kingdoms, which they have left behind, only come to find out that they were not fighting for the kingdom that has eternal life. Instead they realize they were tricked by the devil’s kingdom by loving the temporary things. God is not a respecter of people or earthly kingdoms. Earthly kingdoms usually get in the way of people realizing God’s eternal kingdom. Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world. So why do we keep stressing about the different kingdoms of this world? It is because the devil wants to keep us busy with the concerns of this world. In that way we keep our minds on protecting the temporary good things of this world and forget about the eternal good things of God’s kingdom. If the devil keeps us protecting and cherishing even the godly temporal things of this world, then the devil wins by default, because our attention has been diverted from the important eternal good things of God’s kingdom.

We have to realize that even if something is considered godly and good in this world, it doesn’t mean we need to acquire or have it. If our goal is to have and work for what is considered good in this world, then we will not fight for what is eternally good, which is God’s kingdom. Even if it seems that something in this world is godly and every person should have it, our goal should not be on attaining it or preserving it for ourselves. Even the things that are considered good and godly can feed our selfish interests and take us away from God and His eternal work for Him. Even the godly good pleasures of this world will bind us to the devil’s kingdom by loving the things of this world instead of God Himself. The way of attaining God’s kingdom is attaining God Himself by the way of Jesus Christ.

God’s kingdom is spiritual and the worldly kingdoms are temporal and of the devil’s kingdom. The only things that are eternal are of the spiritual realms. The only things that enter heaven or hell are of the spiritual nature. Since the spiritual realms are the only things that are eternal, then that is where we should do our fighting. We can’t let ourselves be bogged down by any physical things of this earth, no matter how good they might seem. Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking that God has blessed you with many good things of this world, when in the spiritual reality; it is the devil that has sidetracked you into loving the world and God’s creation instead of loving only God Himself. Be a hero for God’s kingdom and not for a temporary worldly kingdom.

As Christians we are called to fight, to preserve and expand God’s eternal kingdom, not physical kingdoms. The only way to expand God’s kingdom is to bring more souls into it. This is what God’s plan is. Is God’s plan also your plan? Are you willing to forsake even the temporary good things of this world in order to grow God’s eternal kingdom. God’s says we are to store up treasures in heaven. Well, the only things we can store up in heaven is our soul and the spiritual souls of others. There is nothing else that we can store or bring with us. No matter how good and/or amazing God’s created things are, the only things that enter His eternal kingdom are the spiritual things. So, if you are working to acquire God’s physical created things instead of His spiritual eternal things, then the devil has tricked you. We must not worship or desire the created things, but instead worship and desire the creator.

Michael W Reid