Why Not Yet Raptured?

I have been asked that question a few times....Why is your blog called "Not Yet Raptured?" This is a fairly easy question. Are you a Christian? Are you setting on earth reading this blog on an electronic device of some sort? Then, you are "not yet raptured"....just like me. It is a reminder that we still have work to do in this broken world. We have prayers to pray, hurts to listen to and minister to, people to love, and many other ways to serve the Lord.

I have been reading through 1 Peter in the New Testament. The first chapter starts out with Peter talking to Christians who are in exile. In the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine and social distancing, this should ring home a bit. While we are put away from society for a different reason than persecution, we have seen a bit of persecution of the church going on by some government officials. I don't want to chase that rabbit, but instead turn to the truth found in 1 Peter 1.

Peter talks about the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. He uses the Greek equivalent of a church-y word...sanctifying or sanctification. This word means the process of becoming holy or being set apart for use by God. In real world terms, it is the process we should be going through as faithful followers of Christ. Sanctification is a slow and steady growing of our faith and understanding by:

• study of God's Word, both privately and with a group
• prayer, both privately and in agreement with others in a group
• regular participation in a local church in both Sunday School and Worship Services
• service through our local church, local association of churches, state association, and national/international associations and missions
• giving of both tithes and offerings of money, time, and talents
• mentoring and being mentored
• reading books which are of sound doctrine on Christian growth topics
• loving God and being loved by God

Over time, as you practice these and other spiritual disciplines, in obedience to God and His Word, you will grow closer to Him and understand Him more. It is not an easy process. Jesus tells us many times in the New Testament about the cost of discipleship....about what type of struggle it would be to grow and help others grow. We can grow in simple faith or take a deep dive, as God is very complex, if you want to dig theologically deep.

By itself, the concept of eternity is huge and beyond our mind to comprehend fully (I mean, face it - 3 minutes for a bag of microwave popcorn seems like an eternity to us). We cannot wrap our heads around how truly big, intelligent, and loving God is - think abut it - we rebelled against Him in total defiance of an all powerful Creator (that is our sin...we missed the mark...and keep missing the mark....lather, rinse, repeat) and He loved us so much He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us so we could be reclaimed through our faith in that ultimate sacrifice that Jesus made. We deserved death. We deserved punishment. We received a Savior. We received God's grace. He provided a way of salvation when He should have provided what we rightly deserve, wrath....death.

Here is where the rubber meets the road...The closer we grow to God...the more prepared we are for service. The more mature we are in our walk with God, the more we should be drawn by the Spirit to serve in ways that match up to our spiritual gifts.

More about service, spiritual gifts, and Peter later...he has a great message for us...I haven't even gotten past verse 2 in this post.

For now, I pray that you take a moment and do a really deep and thorough spiritual examination. Let's start....

• As sure as there is a beginning, there is an end.
• As sure as there is wrong (sin), there is justice required for the wrong (sin).
• In the end, we will all stand before a Judge....His name is Jesus.
• Right now, He is the Savior....later, He will be the Judge.

We need to take a deep look and honestly ask ourselves, "What have I done with this man, Jesus?"

There are only two options:

1. I have not taken Him seriously and have rejected Him as Savior
2. I have a relationship with Him as my Savior and Lord

It really is that simple. We either reject or accept His offer of salvation by faith through grace. 

 We all know John 3:16 (NIV) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Have you ever paid attention to the two verses that follow?

John 3:17-18(NIV) - 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Two choices...believe or not believe in the one and only Son, Jesus. No middle ground. No all loving God that will not punish our rebellion (sin). No nature gods. No special power through crystals. No Buddha. No Mohammed or Allah. No Confucius. No reincarnation, enlightenment, karma or whatever other phrase you want to call it.

If you have not made the decision to follow Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, there is no time like right now. There is no magic formula or any one specific prayer that insures salvation. You just have an honest prayer to God similar to this:
      "God, I know I have sinned and it keeps me from You. I know I can't do anything about my sin. I know your Son, Jesus, can take care of my sin problem. So, Jesus, take care of my sin and save me. Forgive me of my sin. Help me to live each day for You."

You can close that prayer in the traditional "In Jesus' name I pray, Amen."  Or with just "Amen" , which is a church-y word that just means "I agree."

If you really understand and really mean this prayer, it is that simple to be saved. And, it only has to be said once (see Stop Asking Jesus into You Heart by J.D Greear. This is a great book).

Have more questions? Not ready for the prayer above?

Check out Need Him or Good News.

If you prayed the prayer or researched more on the sites above, you may have made the choice to follow Jesus and "repent". The Bible tells us in Luke 15:7(NIV) - "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."

We will get around soon to the church-y word repent as we dig a little deeper. Right now, belief is a good start. And, Christ follower (or possibly new Christ follower) remember, you are not yet raptured.

God loves you. God has a plan for you. Go serve Him....not because you have to serve Him to be saved, but you want to serve Him because He saved you! Let Him use you to love on others and tell them about Him....stop reading this blog for now....go serve Him!

In case you are not actually obeying the command above (you know who you are....), I want to give a big shout out to Larry and Sheila Benson. They serve with a group called Missions Encounter International. Right after I accepted Jesus as Savior, Larry and Sheila poured into my life and taught me so much about service and love. Click on the link above. Check out their work as they are living out daily being the hands and feet of God. Pray for them and their work. Donate to their mission work. Attend a mission trip to go on site and see first-hand what they are doing to serve God through missions.

My return to the blogging world...brace yo'self

Years ago (read as "A long, long time ago...."), I had a blog on my own website.  I was a Youth Pastor and the blog was a creative outlet for me and kept my youth and adult volunteers plugged in.  I kept up the blog with weekly posts for about 3 years of the 5 years or so I was a "real" Youth Pastor (not just a volunteer without a real sounding title...you know who you are).  As I became discouraged, way too busy, and the site hosting fees kept increasing, insert your favorite excuse here, I quit the site and the blog.  Fast forward to 2020.... through the years, I have moved from volunteer in various areas of church service and ministry to Youth Pastor to Senior Pastor to no pastorate to leading an associational summer youth camp for the past few years along with my partner in crime, spouse, cheerleader, lion tamer, and all around best friend.  Over the last few years, I have been trained as a Chaplain serving in Disaster Relief through the North American Mission Board (https://namb.net).  Enough on the the reunion tour...

So, I could not sleep any longer this morning...I woke up at 6 AM...so completely not a morning person (I magically become somewhat human around the second cup of coffee).  I was having some quiet time...you know, the thing that all Christians say you should have and many of us neglect.  Well, I did not neglect that time.  I felt God impressing upon me to return to blogging. 

I argued with God (of course - when was the last time I just did what God was leading me to do???) about how many bloggers there were and how the explosive excess of words on the Internet was just choking up many gigabytes of server storage (this is a technical term...it means using a lot of storage -kinda like the collection of whatever you collect sitting in the closet that your wife has told you to sort through and dispose of...) and most of those words are empty and trivial and would not even serve as a good fertilizer and many have a vile stench like the indescribable, hairy remnants of leftovers in that re-used sour cream container (yes, the one shoved in the back of the fridge on the bottom shelf...you know the one...you dare not open it for fear of unleashing a plague upon your nostrils and any close inhabitants).  I mean, seriously...look at the blogs, Facebook posts, tweets, snaps, insert your favorite gibberish creating and sharing platform catch phrase here, etc.... Look at them all...empty words based on someone's idea of truth not founded in any truth and especially not the Truth found in Christ. 

While I have no delusions of grandeur (which, to be honest, if I pull a phrase like that out, I obviously have at least a slightly glistening delusion of some sort...not quite up to the standards of grandeur, mind you), I am hoping to create a space where I can, in my random rambling sort of way through use of parenthetical thoughts (like this one), strange musings (did you see the sour cream container comment above???), and intentionally horrible use of grammar and sentence structure (my apologies to Mrs. Desper, Mrs. Pringle, Miss Seaton, Mrs. Jacobs and whole host of other English teachers and professors who are hopefully not grading my posts...), create a place, a space, a cove of safety and solitude to just pause and reflect on God, His Son, and our daily walk, service and sacrifice (and maybe chuckle just a little bit that you found someone as messed up in their sense of humor and walk as you are).  My hope is if you have never placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your only hope of salvation, that you would find Him in this blog somewhere....that these posts would try to be a little less church-y and Christian-ese filled and instead try to explain things in a way that would honor God and draw you close to Him (that was kinda church-y and Christian-ese). 

What I mean is this...God is real.  You can know Him. You can have a real relationship with this immense being that created the world....with this being you cannot see.  You can grow to know more about Him and call Him Father.  He loves you.  You can not do anything to make Him love you more, nor do anything to make him love you less.  Why?  Because He alone is Creator and that is the way He is.

So, buckle up, strap in, put your tray table in it's upright and locked position, keep your arms and legs inside while moving, insert your favorite safety-related phrase here, because I have returned to blogging. I cannot guarantee weekly content ( I mean...there is no warranty or guarantee expressly written or implied...).  My thoughts are random, and I will try my best to capture them as they pass briefly through my brain pan.  Thanks for reading my first post (if in fact you did read this....)!