https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB_9Ub4W2nI#t=39  Have you done some deep thinking regarding the rapture?  Why would God snatch a segment of believers out prior to demonstration of His Wrath upon the Earth? What makes you sure that it’s true, can you demonstrate from scripture and what do you say to other believers who may have alternative beliefs?  When does the rapture happen, according to events in scripture?  Why do Jesus, Paul, Peter and John repeatedly sound the trumpet for “readiness” with Christians?  Isn’t being saved all that I need to consider with regard to “Harpazo” or “rapture”?  If being saved is all that I need be concerned with regard to rapture, what does being saved look like?  What part does the Holy Spirit of God play in salvation?  Is it possible to be saved without being sealed by the Holy Spirit?  Is there a reward for being the only group in human history to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?  Does God treat differing groups with differing judgment. or are we all held accountable to the same standards?  Should I be concerned about convincing other Christians about rapture when they resist the truth of scripture regarding this mystery?

The simple question is, “Do you wish to be here on the Earth during the seventieth week of Daniel, commonly know as the period of tribulation?”  Are you amazed that it is a choice?  Have you been thinking that it was a lottery or some system of pick and choose?  Belief in rapture is scriptural and has to do with the God we serve and the promises He made to believers.  Jesus, Himself made promises to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3 regarding the tribulation, some He warned that they would be included if they did not repent and others He encouraged would be “saved” from this Wrath to Come.  How many of you realize that these letters to the churches from the Lord were meant for all of our ears?  As in all of scripture, these were not letters of antiquity to churches existent at the time of Jesus’s Ascension, but were clear direction to all believers, all churches, all time periods.  We are to be “ready” for coming judgment and to escape the brutality, tragedy and horror of coming judgment we must be found compliant with God’s Will.  To do this we must learn those expectations.  If you haven’t studied Revelation 1, 2 and 3 then it is likely you do not know what the Lord expects of us as believers.  Study up, get ready.

Differences.  The way that the world is behaving is misaligned with scripture and the directions of God.  I am sorry that men, collectively have chosen to go astray.  It certainly would be better if everyone was conscious of their own behavior and willingly determined to seek congruence with God’s prescribed Will, but that is not the way things are.  This sadness, depression, mourning is it truly about the world or am I also grieving the Holy Spirit through my own actions or inactions?  After all, my own alignment with scripture is that for which I have any true influence or leverage.  Is my example consistent with God’s Glory?  Am I bringing honor or dishonor to His redemptive Grace?

We see that there are two sides forming, those for God with a measure of repentance and those who are aligning themselves with doubt, mockery and sometimes challenging God’s Sovereign Authority directly.  I do not speak of those in the middle as being a separate group for the Bible is very clear what happens when a man refuses to make up his mind for whatever reason.  There after all are two sides.  God knows every hair on every head that will be included among the redeemed.  They have chosen to have God write His Word upon their hearts and face the coming judgment armed with the security of their passing this plane to eternity.  Many will be led astray, but I also see God’s plan for their redemption born from tribulation.  I will not argue with those who seek to convince or justify their position by producing a better argument than my own.  For even if they were to convince me of the folly of my argument, judgment will still come to each of us, for it is with the Sovereign Word of Almighty God that they tussle.  There is no evidence which may be produced to overturn His Rightful and Promised Judgment, for He is a Righteous and Holy God who cannot void His own promises.

Where will I be found on that great day or rapture, happily looking to the heavens from whence my salvation comes, preparing my heart and mind for His coming or will I be found asleep, unaware, ill-prepared for His Imminent Arrival, as promised.  I could say it is of no consequence, but that would be false for each person mattered enough to God that He came and took up humanity in order to offer His perfect life as sacrifice so that every man, woman or child could be saved.  It mattered enough for God to humble Himself hanging on a tree for the likes of you and me, people who were complicit in the punishment by death of an innocent man to save us from the truth which He spoke.  It mattered enough to God that He would stand the mockery, disbelief and ridicule of a disobedient creation just so that they would have the time to make up their minds and be convinced of their own sin unto repentance.  The short of is that it mattered, to Him, and that is all that matters.

In His will I walk, believe, convince, teach and proclaim the coming judgment and the awesome Good News of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, unto a world that would hear it not.  Praise Jesus, the King.

Father, There is no excuse for our misuse of Your blessings bestowed upon us.  There is seemingly no end to our oversteps, abuses and manipulation of the boundary between wrong and right.  We have forgotten the narrow path that leads to righteousness and truth.  Our behavior seeks the darkness, shadow and alleyway instead of honoring light.  My own pursuits mirror more a man pent on personal passions rather than a saint set upon sanctification.  There is no lasting glory in these achievements.  We have been left collectively empty, a mockery of the good men we initially intended.  Our light is dim, but it is not out Father, we still have glow enough to lead us once again to humility and prayer at the foot of Your Throne.

Father, Yahweh, Adonai, Almighty God, Maker of both heaven and earth, our Creator, our triumph, our Lord, we cry out to You.  Our weakness has overtaken our resolve, we can no longer muster the energy to pursue truth, our collective heart festers in stagnation and sediment.  Wash us clean in the renewing waters of Faith and Grace.  Give us new understanding of our blessings and their eternal value.  Heal us, rid us of poison, pain and false pursuit.  Remove the idols that send us scurrying, in search of grandeur, folly, stimulation and gain, but end only in pain.  Return us to piety, purity and sanctity, the place of righteous honor.  Let us not be counted among the unrighteous dead, set for impending, imminent and eventual judgment.

Lord Father, return us the true commitment made by our forefathers upon the rock, the salvation, the immoveable cornerstone, Christ Jesus.  Send torrential rains to wash clean our iniquities so that we may approach the footfalls of Your throne room without guilt.  Make us a people of clean lips so that our prayers may once again be fragrant to Your delight in heaven.  Allow us to sacrifice all and receive more in return.  Forgive our disobedience if we will repent and turn our voices, hearts and lives once again to You.

The costs are rising, not just monetary, but the price of freedom, even that liberty to express your love for God.  Soon, there will be sticker shock such that men will begin to either miss the Word or openly mock and deny it.  As has always been the nature of Jesus Worship, outward expression of Godly life will diminish while underground the Church will flourish.  Yes, that has always been the way of Christianity during periods of persecution, it grows.  satan knows this that is why he is trying to make a general, global-spiritual religiosity possible, bringing together all the liberal elements of piety to form something akin to tolerantism.  In this fest to develop an “accepting all comers” form of idol worship, they will in effect declare an all out war on the followers of Jesus Christ.

Misunderstanding the nature of God they will lump Him, the One True God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob in with the “acceptable”, mutable nebulous gods of the many.  They will soon realize that there is only One God, The Amen, The Great I AM, His Name is Jesus and He waits for humanity to come to Him in humility, asking for forgiveness and faith.  This they will not do, must not do and they will shortly go to any lengths necessary to declare Christians unacceptable, incompatible with society and intolerable.  At the basis of irony they will proclaim their tolerance by being intolerant of those who follow Christ.  Yes, we will suffer persecution, but that has been foretold by God, Himself, as He carried our sin burden to the Cross of Calvary.  In the end, He will and has always been our redeemer and will set all things in order on “one fine day”.

We must stand strong in the face of oncoming and inevitable adversity, knowing God will fight for us.  Even unto the loss of this fleeting life we must not deny Christ.  Fear not men who can commit the body to the grave, but fear God, A Holy and Righteous God who commits men to eternity, either with Him or away from Him.  If you are weak then you are exactly where God may find you, for in that weakness You will reach out to Him in truth, surrender and great need.  Our God is the Lord who uses our weakness to demonstrate His Glory, taking those who cannot and using them to perform the impossible.  Stand strong not in your own capacity to overcome, for you will certainly falter.  Rather stand in His Righteousness, His immutability, His Strength and unchanging kindness.  Forgive men for throughout the ages they have been and continue to be blind to the things of God.  We once did awful things too.

Praise God in all His Glory and Remember Him as He came to Earth as a man to pay the price of freedom from the crippling hands of sin and death.  Jesus Christ the Lamb, the Lion, He alone is worthy to set humanity free.

He’s waiting.  I keep expecting God to show up in a manner that answers my quiet prayers, but all that He keeps repeating is that He is waiting.  Lord, I see in Your Word that there have often been conditions upon blessings or promises that You have made known to the world.  I am sorry that I have been naive to the conditions of my repentance, purity, growth, understanding, obedience and change.  You have wanted me to become a new creature for so long and have been waiting for me to step forward to accept the blessing that You have reserved for me but I have either been oblivious or obstructive.  Please forgive me.  I know that I cannot earn my way into heaven for my salvation is provided through Grace alone, but I certainly have prohibited the blessings that may have been bestowed through my non compliant behavior and attendance to sin.  Please take these remaining icons, idols and squirreled sins from me as I was obviously hoping to keep one foot in the old life, while seeking sanctification.

Father this world is running out of energy.  Entropy is occurring before our very eyes, proof of sorts that this world was originally given only so much energy before winding down.  The mistake we have always made is assuming that so much energy, matter and precious life, mystery and majesty could come from nothing.  Nothing only begets nothing.  Life without God is impossible, life away from God is corruption in perpetuity.  Me imagining God does not make me an ontological genius, nor does it validate God’s existence.  God exists whether or not I exist or believe.  Belief is the condition that He has set for us to be redeemed of sin.  Bail has been set and that bail simply requires belief, repentance and transformation to keep us permanently safe from the judgment we deserve but gloriously also makes us joint heirs with Christ in the majesty of eternity, God and heaven.  God is waiting for me to comprehend and comply with what He has known and been saying all along.

He is also waiting in the most exquisite display of patience in the history of the universe for all of humanity to come to Him and be saved from judgment.  Even those who have disobeyed, mocked, committed the most despicable crimes or flat out disbelieved to wake up, repent, believe on Jesus Christ and come to Him.  He is giving us every possible minute of history to make that decision and patiently forestalling His wrath against wickedness so that all may have every opportunity to come to the same realization.  What a wonderful God.  I thank you Father for setting this wonderful example of love, patience, long suffering, mercy and generosity.  Praise Your Holy Name, we do not deserve such sacrifice.  I am humbled to be in Your service.  Jesus Come Sweet Jesus, but if you must wait Lord please let them come to You and be saved.  Bless all the world with the knowledge of God so that they may be made anew.

Thank you Lord for reminding me how few of my thoughts are married to wisdom.  Your ways are like the passing of the sun.  We feel its warmth incredibly from nearly a hundred million miles away, perfectly positioned to sustain our lives, though we rarely stop to consider its awesomeness.  You gave us a dependence upon sun, water, fire and earth such that few can survive without them.  Light, thirst, cold and sand leave us longing for our next drink, sight or planting.  These things represent a dependence upon you Father for without these things we cannot survive, how much more is this true about relationship with You.  Forgive me for taking Your Love and Grace for granted even for a moment.

I may suspect why You have chosen to wait for those holdouts, resisting Your truth to the end and beyond, but I do not truly understand.  Your Love is beyond me.  They have mocked, forgotten, dismissed, disobeyed, ignored, threatened, resisted and thwarted Your directions, yet You still wait with hope of their repentance.  You direct us to go to them with peace, love and sometimes recrimination, knowing that they may hit us with rocks or worse yet.  Must I mirror their disobedience by telling You, No, I shall not go to them proclaiming need for repentance?  Lord help me to respond immediately and positively to Your every direction.  For if You find them worthy of patience and every attempt though it even cost my life, I pray that I should love them enough to repeat Your message.  Teach me to forgive even before offense has occurred.  For the offense is not aimed at me but rather at You Father, therefore any judgment should be Yours.

If I may be an example or a pylon indicative of Your existence let it not be portrayal of resistance to Your Will.  Let unbelievers see only the delight that accompanies willing obedience to Your Plan.  I often must remind them they are worthy of love for this world has cruelly convinced them that they are not lovable.  You have loved them Father and that is enough for me.  What is the nature of hope that it confounds circumstances?  How do we as men rise to the level of believing when all worldly and scientific reason commands us to abandon reliance upon faith?  The answer, we do not fold ourselves into common thought just because it makes us acceptable to man.  I am not different to exercise some rebellious right of passage by bucking the trends of smarter men.  I have met God in my heart and I realize my place in the universe as servant, son, priest and warrior.  The tasks set before me have been given me by the Lord.  Loving you is the greatest thing I will ever do.  Thank You Lord God for that opportunity.

In Jesus Name.

My job has been to love you as He first loved me.  This I have done and will continue to do no matter what corner of time each of us resides.  My dreams are filled with Christ and the fulfillment of His Word.  Sitting behind him dressed in white, on a great horse weeping for humanity as they seem transfixed upon confrontation with God.  Why must we seek a fight that we never stood chance of victory?  Is the resistance to truth, kindness, obedience and justice truly so weighty that more than half of humanity cannot bear the payment?  I have seen this blessing squandered, untethered to faith, ill stewarded to predicament and dilapidation.  Lord must I bear to watch this nation sold for the price of mockery?

Our disobedience is complete.  Certainly we are generous and we do good but none of this matters in God’s economy without faith.  We seek to buy our way to eternity by doing just enough right to justify ourselves in the eyes of men.  Works only matter when they are done from love for the grace that has been freely bestowed upon undeserved mankind.  You sit there cross armed, close eyed or smirking, annoyed by the simple fact that I love Jesus and you find it an infringement upon your freedoms, liberties and lifestyle.  None of that lifestyle you worship would be possible without the air that you breath or the water you drink of the blood which sustains the life which He also gave.  Does it free you to believe they happened through some cosmic accident, or that aliens somehow seeded the Earth to propagate our species?  It is a wonderful coincidence that in either of those explanations for man’s origin you are freed from any obligation, obedience or moral reflection.  There are coincidences but only for unbelievers, the rest of us serve God’s plan.

Father I know that I am not employing the talents you have given me, until now I only understood how they would serve my desires.  I had not been transformed by a renewing of my mind.  I have served Lord but never fully understanding direction, purpose, song or completion.  Each day I am remade to follow Your Will to an end that includes eternity with You.  For that I will live each of these days I have been given with an spirit expectancy.  I will dream of You and be complete.  All of my days are Yours, Sweet Father God, in the Name of the Lamb and Lion of God, Jesus Christ, destined to judgment and rule.  Amen.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/jews-ordered-to-register-in-east-ukraine/7816951/

The world is being shaped toward the final stages of God’s Plan for humanity.  Russia, now partnering with Iran, coincidentally they’ve been fighting each other for thousands of years, is now embarking on an expansionist campaign that will culminate in a joint assault on Israel.  How do I know this, because the Bible explains the entire episode in Ezekiel 38 and 39?  Neither the circumstances leading to this horrific event nor the assault itself surprises me whatsoever, for it is what God has said must occur.  What does however intrigue me is that the majority of mankind is either blinded by the events or they just plain refuse to see the absolute truth of God’s Prophetic Judgment forming before their eyes.  It must be understood that the objective of this coming attack on a “peaceful” people and God’s subsequent destruction of these conquering armies is to undeniable revelation of God Almighty to a reluctant world.  After God destroys these advancing armies no one will ever be able to again say that God does not exist.  Maybe that is the reason for people to see the truth of Biblical prophecy.

The Jews have not been forgotten by their God, the Almighty Father of Abraham, Issac and Jacob.  He made specific promises to His people that shall be addressed and fulfilled in the tragic years to come.  Life has never been easy for the Jewish Nation.  Because of their relationship to God and their subsequent disobedience they have been harangued throughout history in accordance with God’s prophecy.  The diaspora did not dissolve them, satan’s persistent attempts to complete their genocide has not destroyed them and man’s ugly assault upon this blessed people has done nothing but make them more resilient.  These people have been maintained, sustained and brought back to the land of Israel for God’s Purpose and Promise.  No aggression, ill intent, machination or harassment will provide for their destruction because they are in God’s Hand.  To those who refuse to see the truth of this incessant evil onslaught against one nation, I say to you if you continue in unconsciousness and do not stand with or for the Jewish Nation you will be counted among those awaiting receipt of God’s impending judgment.  Be warned, be aware, stand with Israel or stand against God.

Must I be like Thomas and require that God provide me proof that my eyes alone would accept as proof of His existence and truth?  For would my eyes not then choose to deny what they have seen just as my mind and heart have resisted to this date?  I am set free by truth, but not because I suddenly had it revealed to my eyes as in some grand revelation.  The truth has released from the prison of my previous thinking because I first “chose” to believe and follow Christ.  In my choice and growing faith I found revelation and truth.  Simply, my belief led me to the consciousness necessary to comprehending truth.  That is why this world resists the truth that stands readily before their eyes, because they must first believe in God in order to see His mighty Hand in everything that is made, has been made or will be made.

Thank you Father for choosing me.  Deserving has nothing to do with it.  I am simply humbled that You would consider me in such light.  Jesus my King.  Praise to You in all Your Glory.

Does the Holy Spirit fill your mind’s eye with whispers of coming Glory and a peace that befuddles humanity?  Where is your worry, concern and burden?  Why are you so unencumbered by grief and want, shouldn’t this weighty world have imprisoned your hope and stifled your joy?  How can you be jubilant in the midst of tragedy, the worst to befall this world in the history of all mankind?  Don’t you fear what the signs portray?  Don’t you fear the tomb that this world must become, through chaos, war, poverty, pestilence and famine?  Why does a fire burn in the apple of your eye, an enduring flame, unquenched by the mightiest river of fury and dampening spirit of this world?

My hope is not in promises of man, luck or scientific solution.  My hope in the victory of Christ Jesus over sin, death, pestilence and war.  A victory that has armored me from the all the testimony of evil and flaming arrows of misfortune.  My hope is in the perfect lamb of God who took away all the sins of this world through His sacrifice upon that rough wooden cross.  My hope is in the King of Kings who will shortly return as the Lion of Judah to pronounce judgment as only He may do.  My hope is in the joy that fills my heart knowing that eternity spent in the presence of God awaits me the moment I cross from this life to the next.  What shall I fear in this life or the next if my treasure is secured in the Promises of Almighty God?  If they think me mental, why do I have peace and they remain in fear, strife, worry and hurry, scurrying about the fulfill some worldly precedent?  I forgive them and pray that they see the salvation of Almighty God through belief in the redemption of Christ the King.

This world will soon see its worst.  The chaos that will ensue upon this planet will be nearly unbelievable, but that is why the Lord has warned us in advanced so that we might be prepared in our heart’s, mind and spirit, based upon the truth of God.  If you sit in deceit, illusion and worry, believing somehow that men will rise to the challenges set before us that threaten our continuance, then I pray that the veil be removed from your eyes so that truth shall prevail.  Judgment is coming upon this earth and the only hope of salvation is belief in, repentance, surrender and dependence upon the Lord Jesus for cleansing, salvation, sanctification and deliverance.  Seek and ye shall find such hope and safety under the Almighty wings of God.  Seek truth, seek peace and bring all those that would be present for harvest to the gathering of saints.  Love prevails.  Christ is King.  I love and fear only You Father.  In Jesus’ Name.

What am I showing those around me?  Is it peace, assurance, surety, dependence, faith and trust in the promises of God?  How then do I expect them to see their way to relationship with the Almighty if I do not demonstrate those qualities indicative of the Holy Spirit’s Presence?  Have I listened to the words, allowed them to roll around for years inside my head and then never applied them to the life for which they promise victory?  What a shame it is to be that close to warmth and continue to be cold.

Does this world need a little more chaos?  Perhaps could it use a bit of my own greed, because it is in short supply of avarice?  Maybe it would become a better place with the advent of my own hate for mankind.  I get it, I will share my doubt and lack of faith, that will pick people up.  And forgiveness, love, kindness, patience and justice, there is no benefit in these, so I should keep them to myself.  I do not like sarcasm, but is there any other way to categorize how we as Christians have avoided, ignored, disobeyed and generally misunderstood God’s Plan and intention for our behavior?  What we have exhibited are the worldly shadows of the people we are inside.  God help us because this behavior demonstrates “NO EVIDENCE” of the presence of the Holy Spirit of God.

For whom am I living this life?  I will answer that clearly, my own glory, comfort and satisfaction.  Am I encouraging those around me to better themselves by surrendering to God’s Will for their lives or am I modeling a worldly mold into which they may conform themselves to find “sensory satisfaction”.  God help me I must admit my sin and poor service.  I will not condemn myself as a saint of God, but neither can I turn my eye from my extreme need of daily repentance and God’s fulfilling Grace.  If not for God’s Grace I certainly would have no hope except the eventuality of damnation.  Praise the Lord He provided a route to salvation through His own sacrifice.

Self Control, that is the one aspect of God that is rarely mentioned in today’s culture.  Do it til your satisfied, just do it, do what you want to do and any other unbridled pursuit of passion, no matter how perverted, is the direction of the day.  To restrain anyone’s behavior, even my own is an assault upon freedom, liberty and the American ideal of self determination.  That is just plain incorrect and morally absurd, never mind that it is in direct conflict with God’s Divine Ethical Revelation.  I do not belong to me, but I died on Calvary’s cross two thousand years ago with Christ.  My life now is His and any aspirations or attempts to live it out under my own carefully/poorly designed strategy is forfeit.  That man, that worldly man that I was is no longer, for I am a new creation in God through Christ.  How long will it take that to soak into this near impervious skull and to change the pursuits of this fickle heart?  I hope not a moment longer.