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It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

If you don’t read all of my SIR… then You’ll be kinda surprised by this entry… but if you DO read my sites, then you’ll know where this is coming from.

One of the sites I read with somewhat regularity is a woman who resides in MI as a stay at home mom.  She has followed the end times events closer than anyone I know and is pretty opinionated that it’ll happen … well… during Rosh Hashanah (Friday or Saturday).  What event shall happen so soon?  Well, she thinks the rapture.  After that is 7 years before Christ returns…  She hasn’t claimed this as fact, but it’s more of a wishful thinking backed by scripture and current events kinda deal.  In any respect, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared!  Scripture tells us to!

I’m not entirely convinced that the rapture is going to happen in the next 24-48 hours here, but it got me thinking.  Do I wish it’d happen?  YES!  Do I think it’ll happen this year, no.  Yet, I pray I’m wrong!

Are you ready?

Honestly… Do you want it to happen soon?  I revert here to a previous post of mine regarding heaven.  For the 99% of you who won’t click that to read it… here’s the best part:

Recently our small group finished the book, “Everybody’s Normal Till You Get To Know Them” by John Ortberg.  There is a chapter about Heaven.  It describes how we are often fearful of going to heaven because we don’t know what it’ll be like for sure.  We worry that we won’t have experienced life fully down here yet… We worry that we’ll be missing out on life.  We ALL want to go to heaven… just NOT NOW!  Here’s an excerpt:

I believe one of the reasons many people don’t look forward to heaven is that we badly misunderstand what the Bible is saying about it.  Lewis Smedes, an ethics teacher of mine in grad school, used to ask students if they wanted to go to heaven when they died.  Everyone raised a hand.  Then he asked, “Be honest now, who would like to go right now, today, before the sun goes down?”

A few raised their hands slowly, giving what they thought must be the correct answer, looking around to see if they were the only ones.  They were.  Most people wanted a rain check.  They were ready to die, but not today.

Then professor Smedes asked who would like to see the world we live in set straight on its hinges once and for all, tomorrow: “No more common colds, no more uncommon cancers.  Everyone would have his day; there would be no second-class citizens.  Prisoners and slaves would be free; hungry people would have plenty; no one would lift a finger to harm another; and we would all be at peace with everyone, even with ourselves.  Anybody interested in that?”

There was a frenzy of hand-lifting.  Smedes said that if a new world tomorrow is what you really want, you want to go to heaven.

Redemption is always the redemption of creation.  God never creates something in order to destroy it; and if it goes wrong, he intends to redeem it.  Smedes notes that sometime ago there was a book written about “the LATE great planet earth,” as if we were to look forward to God’s destroying what he had made.  But Paul says that creation itself “waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.”  Far from being burned up or destroyed, Paul says that creation “will be liberated from it’s bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”  God loves this world that he has made, and, as Smedes says, “he has no plans to preside over its demise.  His plan is to make it right again.”  If in your heart you want that, you want heaven.

The truth is that we as Christians are all wanting to go to heaven… just not now!  We have a life to live yet… we have children to have, to raise… jobs to take on, promotions to get, money to make, people to love and care for.  We have goals to accomplish, agendas to fill, and dreams to fulfill.  We’re scared of the unknown… of vanishing, floating, or God only knows what is going to happen when the rapture occurs!  We don’t know if we’re going to leave behind a pile of clothes or if we get to keep our loved ones close to us in heaven!  Do we need deoderant?  NO CLUE!  (Although I’d say the nay-no to that deoderant remark.)

But we trust Him.  We trust that in the end we’ll be provided for, taken care of, loved, and so happy that we’d not have had it any other way.  Scripture tells us how God will provide for us on earth, so how much better must heaven be?

There is another reality here.  There is the reality that not everyone is going to heaven.  Not everyone has that ticket in.  If you don’t know 100% that you’re going to get into heaven, then you SHOULD be afraid of what could happen in the next 24-48 hours.  You should be afraid of what could happen in the next 4 minutes… heart attack… building fire… psychotic murderer…  Ya just don’t know!

So how?  How do you know 100%?  Simple.  All you do is ask.  Ask Christ into your heart.  Just pray.  Just say, “God… I know I can’t do life on my own.  I know you died on the cross to forgive my sins.  I accept Jesus as my savior.  I accept this gift you’ve given me and I thank you.  Come into my life and help me become the person you want me to be.”

Wait a minute… THAT’S IT?  That’s all I have to do to go to heaven instead of hell?  To have eternal joy instead of suffering… all I have to do is say and mean those simple words… whether out loud or in my head… … … Yup.  That’s it.

BUT HOLD ON HERE!  What about good deeds… what about pure intentions… what about giving money to the poor and being kind and nice and always putting the toilet seat down?!?!?!  Well, those are all fine and dandy, but at what point do you draw the line?  When is a good deed meter high enough to say you’ve earned your way into heaven?  When can you look at God and say, “Hey, thanks for making heaven… I’m glad I earned my way into it by not being as big of a jerk as the rest of the world…  I’m glad that my disobeying you was outweighed by my giving to charity…  I’m glad my cheating on my spouse was outweighed by my telling the truth to my mother that her meatloaf really DID suck…”  Somehow I think that the God of perfection… who created heaven and earth… will be just a bit more discerning of how we enter heaven.

He is SO Holy, SO good, SO perfect… that ONE SIN separates us from Him.  One sin is all it takes to send us to hell for eternity.  One lie.  One foul remark to another.  One lusting thought.  The only way to atone for sin is with the shedding of blood.  In the Old Testament (Before Jesus came) the towns used to have to slaughter animals for redemption.  Often lambs were used.  The head of the household would place his hands on the head of the lamb and pray to God to forgive his family for their sins.  Then he’d slit the animals throat and the spilling of the blood would atone for the sins of that family.  The families were told to select “blemishless lambs.”  Ones without defect, scar, or marks that would decrease their value.  Jesus was the final lamb.  He was the sacrifice for all people, for all time.  He lived a sinless life and was thus blemishless.  Then he suffered his fate and bore the sins of the world on his head.  It was with the spilling of his blood that we are redeemed.

Where Christianity differs from all other world religions is on the point of heaven and hell.  All other religions say “DO!” where Christianity says “Done.”  All other religions say, “Do good deeds, pray 4 times a day, eat this, don’t eat that, say this 5 times, meditate daily, confess sins to a priest, EARN YOUR WAY INTO HEAVEN!”  Christianity says, “It is done.  Accept it.”  Christianity offers God’s grace to save us.  God’s grace alone.  Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Heck, even further on where Christianity differs from other religions… Most other religions don’t believe in hell!  And if they do have any form of punishment, it’s that you have another chance to do it right… … … So logically the smartest thing to do for a non-christain is to prepare for Christ and if that is wrong, YOU’VE GOT ANOTHER SHOT!  But somehow I think that’s kind of a moot point…

But I digress.  God is an amazing God.  Whether or not I’ll meet him tonight, tomorrow, or 50 years from now… God is awesome.  His forgiveness, His grace, His love, His mercy, His comfort…  His righteousness, His wrath, His unwaivering committment to those who’ve trusted in Him and who He calls His children…

It’s only a matter of time before you are hit by a car or find a lump in your neck… … … Are you ready?

Some cool verses:

If you oh Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand?  But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared!  I wait for the Lord, my soul waits.  In His word I put my hope, my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning.  Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption.  -Psalm 130:3-7

He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquity, the chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, and by his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us had turned to our own way, but God hath laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.  -Isaiah 53:5-6

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.  -Romans 8:1-2