Be Ready!

Of all the "end times" debates (rapture? no rapture? tribulation? no tribulation? anti-Christ? pre/mid/post/pan/non-millenium rapture/tribulation? etc.), there is one abiding fact that must be reckoned with: Jesus IS coming back. This is certain. The one thing the Bible is absolutely clear about without ANY disagreement by any theologian, scholar, church, or denomination: YOU MUST BE READY for His coming. Hiding your head in the sand like an ostrich simply because you say you don't believe in the coming of the Lord will not stave off the dire consequences any less than the ostrich will become lion food for his actions! How silly are children who hide under the protection of their bed sheets from monsters lurking in their bedrooms, as if their bedsheets could protect them if the monsters were real? Perhaps that is why so many think they can hide under the same bedsheets of ignorance today, because the bedsheets of their childhood seemed to work all too well at protecting them from the imaginary monsters, and God is, to them, nothing more than an imaginary monster who wants nothing more than to cast them into the pit of hell. Oh, the pity of it all when in the end the Truth will be clearly seen and fully known...the Love of God provided Jesus to bear such a hell in their place and to be the true substitution and protection for them from that horrible destiny, from that very real monster. This is the same Jesus Who is now alive forevermore, Who WILL CERTAINLY return for His own, for those who look for His appearing, those who love Him, those who trust in Him and come to God through Him. When will He come? Nobody knows the day or the hour, but we DO know the season is upon us. It could be today. Nothing else matters about any of the other details of the end times, really. Only this...HE IS COMING BACK. ARE YOU READY? Are you living for eternity now, or are you only living for now? Well, if you're not ready, maybe all that other stuff really does matter after all.


"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." John 3:16-21 NKJV


"But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect." Luke 12:39-40 NKJV

Child-like faith...

I prayed with a 9-yr. old boy this morning who came to the altar for prayer for his mom. He said his mom needed love. After a minute of gently talking with him, I anointed his hands with oil, and with tears in my own eyes I prayed for his own child-like faith to be so empowered that as he went home and laid hands on his own mother, with the simple words, "Mom, Jesus loves you, and so do I", that the uncontainable, gushing over, overwhelming love of God would overflow from God and into that little boy's mom. He then asked me a really honest, straight-forward question, right there at the altar! "Pastor, how do you know this will happen?" I simply told him, "...Because I know the prayers of children are special to God and He hears them...do you believe and trust that God heard you when you just asked him to give your mom more love?" (he quickly and definitely said "Yes!")...(I continued telling him...) "...and you are a child of God with more faith than many people who are much older and even pastors in the church today. Now you just go home, put your arms around your mom and just love her, and share Jesus' love with her, and He will touch her heart through you...do you believe that?" He said, "Yes, I believe that He will!" I was the one who needed the box of tissues after that! Yes, child-like faith..."Let the children come unto me, do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God."