Thoughts on the Rapture

So with tomorrow being the believed rapture (by some), interesting thoughts came into my head.

Whenever this comes up I first think of the scripture that says we will not know the time, and of course I'm a bit skeptical and think how misguided they are. But then I realize they have something right that we generally don't. They're in the perspective that they should be preparing for Christ's return. Albeit I don't believe that the motivation is right, but that's how we should be living our lives. Regardless of the hour we should always live every moment to His glory, and in preparation for His coming.

We should always focus on the great commission as our goal.

I know I'm not the first to come up with this idea, but I think it's still important to bring it to the surface. I also believe that a lifestyle of living as if we are in the last days is completely do-able. If we listen to God's voice and let Him guide our actions instead of expending all our energy running around doing what we believe to be His will.

He moderates our life, giving us the actions to take, and the strength to carry them out. We are also refreshed in Him. His yoke is easy and His burden, light.

The Pure and the Twisted

This is as interesting one. Everyone has seen, but not everyone realizes all the good things that God has made that the Devil has twisted. Pick something, and I can almost guarantee that there is a twisted version of it. I know that for me personally this has created almost a fear to do anything. I also just realized that I subconsciously had begun to believe that the devil had won in the world against God's creation. I started to believe that there were more twisted and demented versions than the real things left.

Then the other night, I was just letting my mind wander before going to bed. As happens, some corrupted thoughts fell into my head which I did not want. I began my regular process of giving it to over to God, and it was a little more difficult than usual.

But then something unexpected and beautiful happened. God took the twisted thought, and untwisted it back into the pure thought it came from.

It was so remarkable, seeing God change something evil into what it was meant to be. I had to stop and just wonder at God and how awesome He is. It gave me hope for what God has for me and the world.

It was so nice to, because it was a conscious change of thought. I have been asking God for about the last semester to give me the correct view on many things that are viewed as corrupt. Slowly, but surely He has in so many areas, but this is the one that made me realize how very much He is working in me to create this.

Thanks!

I pray that this speaks to someone!

Learning to Live by Faith

This is really the story of this past semester.

Before the semester even began I knew by the classes that God had me take that I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. "Tough but good", was the semester's motto. It came to the point that it literally wasn't possible to do it on my own, not a few times either. With classes, and being a prayer team leader my life could have easily been scheduled from the time I woke up every morning to when I went to bed.

Often I would be brought to the point where I had to trust in God’s voice. The trouble is always questioning whether or not the voice is really from Him. If it wasn't God, I would have been crushed by following that voice. I would sink into a deep hole that only God would be able to get me out of. It felt like jumping off of a cliff, realizing full well that if God’s will was not the one telling me to jump it might end terribly. But that's what faith is isn't it? Stepping into the unknown with God at the head. Psalms 23 says it well.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the LORD

forever.

(Psalms 23)

There is so much truth to this passage. When I stepped out in faith there was a peace about it. Knowing that no matter the outcome I was in His hands. I could be jumping into a pool filled with rocks just below the surface, or to my eyes there may appear to be rocks when there are none. It doesn’t matter though, because he is leading me the whole time.

So how does this relate back to my semester? I needed a certain GPA to fulfill scholarship requirements. As said before my schedule was nuts, and I am a person that needs times of rest. I get worn out easily, and then I simply don’t function until my body can take some more.

There were times were I felt God’s voice saying to relax even though I thought that it would cost me points in the class. At the end of the semester though I knew it was His voice, and that His voice was true. I ended with the exact GPA that I needed. And throughout the semester He would give e rest when I was over taxed (sometimes through my own fault). Other times when resting was not an option He gave me strength and inspiration to finish job.

What is most important?

First off, welcome back! It has been two very long hard semesters of college, but I am done now. I hope that again this blog will be revived, and that it will bless and speak to those of you who read. Also, I have a lot of blogs that have not been completed from throughout the year. Hopefully these will be finished soon, especially in light of different experiences that will add to these posts. Expect to see a few new posts in the near future. Thanks for reading faithfully!

So the idea behind this post came from when I was finishing off my last assignments for the semester the other night. As usual with the last assignments I was pretty stressed and on edge. I piled through the last minute details, and cut some things that I usually would not have. I ended up finishing most of the major parts to the class, but needed to go back to campus to complete the rest. On the ride back I was still pretty stressed. It had been my brother's birthday as well as Mother's day. This led me to start thinking "What brought me to the point of putting homework before my family?" It made me sad that I had put more time into my studies than time I felt would have been appropriately spent with my family.

I began to realize though that it is situations like that that make my family so important to me. Times when I am stressed out, when I can't hold on any more. These are the times that my family takes care of me, as they did last night. The situation allows them to display their love to me.

Earlier that morning I had written a note down in church about love:

The amount you love is determined by the amount you give.

I saw how true this statement was in relation to my family. Usually, I write from things that I have given to others, but this time I saw this displayed though my family. I only hope and pray that I can give back to them, and to you, when it is needed most. I don't pray that those times come by any means, but these are the times in which we see God's love for us the most.

To my family. I could never ask for a better display of God's unfailing love to us.

Forgiveness, an Unfathomable Trait of God

So, I thought that I got a bit more indepth to my theology of forgiveness in this blog, but I went back and read my older posts and I didn't mention much (By the way, the older posts are a bit difficult to decipher, but have a lot of good material in them).

I don't know exactly what brought this topic back into my mind, but I know that it's one of my favorite ideas to contemplate and work through. The only problem with my theology is that it isn't strictly based off scripture. I do my best to check it against His word (and by all means, if you find a contradiction let me know), but it could still be off. These ideas are more to be taken and used to exercise your mind, to help you start to understand just how un-understandable God really is.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand: Forgiveness

as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
(Psalms 103:11)

As far as I can see, this passage says that our sins are no longer connected to us. This is a simple passage, and most of us seem to 'know' what it means, but have a hard time believing it. This is where my theology comes in. What if this passage means that not only does God remove our transgressions from us, but from existence? If he says something doesn't exist, who are we to argue? He is what we base our reality on. He is the most existent of everything we know, because he is, and was, and will be to come.

How can this happen though? How can God remove something from existence that HAS clearly happened? Then an explanation started forming in my mind. What if it's like being put to sleep for a surgery? The pain is clearly happening, that's why they put us under in the first place, but when we wake we have no memory of it. To us it doesn't exist. How he forgets it, or uncreates it is another topic, but this is a good stepping stone to those and many other questions.

Just imagine the befuddlement of our accuser on the day of judgement. Listing off the crimes we have committed. And to his astonishment, and even more to ours, when Christ declares that none of it happened! That this evidence has to be thrown out of the court! That we are innocent!

Sincerely,
a guy who likes to just sit and think

Thanks for reading! Comments, as well as follower, are appreicated and welcome!

And again, remember that this is only my theology. Use it as a tool, or a spur to start developing your own theology. Test mine against scripture, and against what you have been taught. Let it become a part of you once it has been tested.

Mentoring, A Collective Whole

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

If you look a few verses back the writer of Hebrews mentions the faith of the ancestors of Israel. Ending with the patriarchs (as well as Sarah). In this passage the author looks at the promises that they were given from God the Father. The largest example being how Abraham was promised to have "descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore", and how he obviously didn't receive that in his life time.

How did this come about, and why am I talking about it (especially after not having blogged for almost a year)? I was reading a daily devotional that is forwarded to me every morning by a friend of mine. It generally starts with a scripture to dialogue about (much like this blog), but curiously once I finshed the passage in scripture God told me to stop reading. The scripture was Hebrews 11:13-16 (the one above). God began to speak to me about it, and how it applied to my life. I won't share with you the direct meaning that it had, and has for me, but I believe I was taught a core principle of Christianty while I was learning about my own life.

As much as we are told this all the time in church it's a pretty simple concept. Christianity isn't about us. It's for those who are yet to come, those who are to join us in our belief. Specifically though this passage reminded me of our duty to train those coming after us.

I believe that our relationship with God is not just about our personal growth with him. I don't deny that we should focus on our personal relationship either, but I believe there is more to Christianity. We also focus on the lost, and again this is very important if not a pivotal element in our lives. But I want to focus on the building up of other believers.

I want to tell you about preparing a generation.

Each generation is like a jump from where the last left off. This has always been for better or for worse, very rarely does a generation imitate its parent generation. We see this easily displayed in technology, every generation has completely new and innovative things that make our lives more efficient. Possibly most noteable though is our attitude. We choose to either rebel against our parents who in our minds thought they knew 'how best to care for us', or we try to fix the problems that we once perceived in our parents' style of teaching and training us.

Ideally each generation should be a leap forwards from their parents. Specifically I would like to see faith developed in our generation, and through us, the coming generation. There are some things that I have found we know to be true, but we still don't have the belief for it. Much like how in Acts 12 the church was praying for Peter, but they didn't believe when he came knocking at the door. They knew that prayer has power, but they did not believe that God's hand would actually move through their prayer.

I'm not exactly sure how to transition to this, so I apologize, but here it is.

As I often do, I was once telling my mom about my day, and how a few of my friends and I had felt led to go try walking on water. I told her in detail everything that led up to the point of stepping out on the water, my mom then interjected and said,"and you did" with a tearful expression of how good our God is. She believed for me, not so much having faith in being able to walk on water, but I believe she had faith, that I had faith, to walk on water.

This is what I want to see more of in our generation.
~First faith in the next generation.
~Second creating opportunities for them to develop their faith.
We may not believe that if we pray for someone that they will be healed, but we don't need to
destroy their faith by telling them so, or worse not praying for the sick to be healed.

Again, I believe that we need to create an atmosphere for those following us that develops their faith and belief. Not showing them where we failed to believe, but rather painting a picture of what can happen if they do believe.

Contrast

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or other! So, because you are lukewarm -neither hot or cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth. (Revelations 3:14b-16)

Today God has affirmed and solidified something that has been in my heart for a long time. This passage has driven my choices. It has built me to refuse middle ground. No longer can I live as a pretender of the faith. I choose to live with passion. I ask that of everyone who reads this. Please, don't settle for partial faith in Christ, believe or don't believe. Follow what your heart tells you.

Anything in between a passionate believer and a passionate unbeliever is a waste of time. It's a waste of YOUR time. Why would anyone ever waste their time by partially following? Hours spent at church could be used more productively if the lessons taught there aren't applied.

Choose your side, take time to consider what you are jumping into, and when you have made your choice don't let anything stop you... including yourself.