Just in Case - Day 279 Month 10-5 Week 38-6
Today's Reading (Bible in 1 year)
1 Chronicles 13:1-15:29, Song of Solomon 6, Hosea 2:1-13, 2 Thessalonians 2
Just in Case
When I was a kid, I worried that I was going to be left behind. I may have seen one of the movies from the “Left Behind” series. The series was based on one particular interpretation of what some Christians believe will happen in the end times when Jesus comes back.
It appears some in the church at Thessalonica were fearful that they had missed the return of Jesus. Maybe someone had deceived them into thinking that the day of the Lord had already come. The apostle Paul quickly explains some of the things that will happen before Jesus returns and tells them not to be disturbed.
The church my family attended throughout my childhood used to bring in special speakers from around the world and during the 1970s and early 1980s, prophecy was the big topic. There were authors writing about the end times and one of those authors, Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, spoke several times at the church to large audiences.
Many of the authors spoke about a rapture of the saints before seven years of intense tribulation. I was terrified that I might have to go through this tribulation if I wasn’t ready. I suspect I prayed to receive Jesus into my heart every week, just in case the previous prayer hadn’t “taken,” or simply because I knew I had prayed to receive Jesus before. Maybe it was a re-commitment, just in case! I did not want to be left behind.
It’s funny in some ways because I have mentioned several times that I made that real decision when I was eleven years old. That is when I genuinely made the commitment to follow Jesus. Yet even after that, I kept wondering if I had really done it right and whether I was truly ready.
The commitment to follow Jesus is real. That’s what I did when I was eleven. I made a genuine decision to follow Him. I can’t explain the meaning behind all those times that I prayed as a child, but what I can say is that sometimes a person can be convinced of something because of fear, or because they have heard an effective way of talking that can make them believe something, and sometimes a person just wants to be accepted in a group and they’ll do what it takes to be accepted.
So here’s the thing. Jesus is pursuing us. There are multiple Bible references that show God makes the initiative to pursue us and that He is calling us. We don’t need fancy speakers or people who can convince us to be a Jesus follower, or hell and brimstone preachers to scare us. What we need is to be open to God who is reaching into our hearts and drawing us to Himself.
What I try to do in this blog is simply to read Scripture and write down what I am hearing from God every day. My hope is that someone might read my blog when they are open to listening, and God uses my words. They hear and recognize God calling them and respond to Him the way I did when I was eleven.
Have a great day!
Steve
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