Where will it find you? Will you at last be trying with all your might to pray, to belatedly cry out for that forgiveness, that repentance you always felt you had the luxury of postponing to a more opportune time? When the very heaven above your head becomes rent with the awesome power of the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ Who finally manifests Himself to a world long gone astray, and many, having repeatedly ignored His gracious offer of forgiveness for those offences ever piled up in the darkest corner of their souls, it comes time to reckon with the ultimate King, where will your heart discover itself to abide?
When I woke up this morning, I had no intention of writing a post, but as with all things spiritual, our own intentions are found to be of lesser importance than what the Master has planned for us. His will is always of utmost priority in everything we undertake, so if my intention for today was to go out into the magnificent autumn wood here in the Ozarks and consume a feast of color and silent wonder, then I can still do that, but only after following this Spiritual task judged to be of greater import.
What a waste of my time and yours, dear reader, if my choice of words lacks of inspirational offering. Perhaps the Spirit will bless us with a succinct communication, a missive of hopeful vision for what lies ahead of us, the sordid condition of the world notwithstanding. It’s as if we find ourselves on some great ship sailing to an uncertain destination and only a few of us understand exactly where we are and where we are going, but the vast majority do not. Some of us by choice have laid hold of words of immense promise from the Scriptures and as a result have found we have an obligation of utmost importance to speak them as we are able to those who wander about the deck in listless confusion, to tell the lost of the very promise we have been privileged to embrace, though in such a way as to pique their interest and yet avoid offense.
These times in which we live offer much trepidation to those who are less informed of the very prophesy we have at our behest, those oracles so graciously bestowed on chosen men of long ago. Such fears of oncoming darkness and the evil it encompasses are easily put to rest with such Spiritual gifts as the Lord Jesus Christ has blessed His children with, primarily the love for God and the love of God. We are reminded in many places in scripture of the profound, unimaginable love that God has for His people and that nothing in all creation can come between us and our Father’s love. It is also made clear that if we possess that Godly love in our hearts, that we have no room for fear of any evil we might face. [1 John 4:18]: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” This is one of the greatest defenses against all of the threats of the enemy and one of the most comforting verses in the whole Bible. Pray therefore for that perfect love which is only available from the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. That perfect love was undoubtedly what buttressed the hearts of the early Christians who remained steadfast in their faith though they were being slaughtered by lions for the entertainment of people of the same bloodthirsty mindset of many of today’s leaders.
If we dwell too much on preparation on how to survive the coming tribulations, we can find that we are placing too much emphasis on surviving in this world, but “prepping” to survive in a world that has been completely taken over by Satan and that has become the realm of demonic principalities is a futile effort at best, at least for decent people. Who in their right mind would want to continue to exist in the darkness ruled by such evil entities? Jesus promised His followers that He would be with us to the very end if and when it comes upon us and that by avoidance of fear, we would earn a crown of life on the other side. [Revelation 2:10]: “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Since these are the words of the Lord and Savior, these things will assuredly happen, but remember that part about love casting out fear and it becomes easier to understand how we can remain faithful even as we face the end of this experience we erroneously consider to be our life. Our life starts the moment we emerge on the other side of that divide we allow ourselves to fear so much. That is the existence we should all be prepping for while we have the time.
Believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior of the world are able to walk through this world without fear of AI or data centers or robot armies. We need not fear man-made plagues or cars that shut down when big brother says they must. We don’t have to worry about getting vaporized in a nuclear war, nor being shot nor beheaded by servants of the enemy. When we arrive at the level of our Spiritual development where we have that perfect love in our hearts that casts out fear, we have reached a point where we completely disarm the enemy, because fear is his greatest weapon which serves him well in a world of nonbelievers. Fear is always brandished; people always speak of coming plagues, theft of property and/or freedom by the “authorities”, etc. In our world today, most news and discussions of existential threats to humanity (mostly commoners, the rich face entirely different threats) are what folks like to think about. Again, too much worrying over what might happen in this life in this world long grown too evil for humanity anyway.
There will be some of us who survive through these troubled times and actually be here to greet Jesus when He comes back for His faithful. It doesn’t matter that much whether were here above the ground or not because the dead in Christ will rise first so those believers who’ve passed on will get to see Him first but we’ll all be gathered together to join Him in the clouds and then we’ll be with Him in Paradise forevermore. Those who rejected Him in this life will pass on to a really awful existence in a horrible place, so by all means get to know Jesus soon because there just isn’t much time left here and a lot of people are going to tragically miss the boat and end up relegated to everlasting torment. This ain’t my judgement, the Bible says it very plainly – get on the right side of God now!
May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.
MK