"Come quickly, Jesus." How rude!

Conspiracy theories have always been with us, but the recent trials of the COVID-19 pandemic have brought out the worst in them. Government control, New World Order, and other common themes have shown up on social media and elsewhere. Often Christians will ponder the return of the Lord in concert with this. "Come quickly, Lord" is the word.

Consider This: do you realize you're praying to condemn your unsaved family, friends, and neighbors?

No matter what end-times belief you may hold, the return of Christ is the end for many people. Some might believe that some might be saved during the 7-year Tribulation, if that's how it goes down. Most will agree, though, that it'll be more Hell on Earth than it is now.

If you care about others as the Lord would have us do, why would you want that?

Most people believe that the whole thing hasn't gone down yet simply because God is still waiting for the stragglers. In His grace and mercy, He is giving everyone one last chance. That should be a good thing. Why do we Christians want to mess that up?

Instead of praying for the Lord to come back, how about reaching out to your family, friends, and neighbors in love, telling them what Christ has done for you? Don't push them or scare the Hell out of them (literally). Pray for them, if nothing else.

"Giving an account"

OK, maybe it’s just me, but years ago I recall someone teaching on Romans 14:12 and getting seriously scared about God. No, I’m not talking about the fear of the Lord that’s the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7; 15:33). I’m talking about getting so scared of what He will do when we first meet “eye to eye” in Heaven that I obsess about every little thing here on Earth.

In case you haven’t already looked at the verse using the little popups, it reads in the ESV:

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Add to that Matthew 12:36, which reads:

I tell you, on that day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.

Mix well with tons of legalism, and you get one paranoid Christian!

Once again, though, chopping up the Bible into little bits and trying to piece them back together into what I call “Scripture Slaw” produces an inaccurate representation of God’s truth. Take a look at all of Romans 14 to get the context, as well as more of Matthew 12.

Consider †his: giving an account of what we did doesn’t remove God’s view of our lives as though we lived Jesus’ life.

We have no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1). Even though we still sin, God’s grace reigns. (That’s not a license to sin, though, as Paul addresses elsewhere in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and other letters.) The judgement those in Christ go through won’t include a stern-face God shaking His finger at us like naughty children, demanding we squirm as we try to given an excuse for the inexcusable, as we are shown our failures when our best wasn’t “good enough.”

This particular fear was something I have had for decades, I just recently realized. I don’t recall what false teaching I heard early in my days in Christ that supported this thought, but it has partially paralyzed me spiritually until recently.

Normally a “good blogger” would ask a question to engage comments from the readers at this point. All I’m going to do this time, though, is ask you simply to consider what I’ve said, and ask that you pass it on to those who might be stuck in the same trap as I’ve been. Also pray for them, and for me, for continued freedom from this paralysis of fear. Thank you.

Daredevil Evangelism

I have to share with you (with permission) an email my wife sent to our pastor today. First, let me set the stage a bit. My wife, Joy, underwent surgery this past Tuesday, June 28. That day & this morning she has been running a mild fever, hasn’t had much energy, has felt the pain of the incisions made, and has been constipated. (My apologies to those who just yelled, “TMI!” That detail is important.)

Let me let her describe what happened today:

Praising God that I'm doing GREAT!!!!! No more high temps praise God! I'm so excited because I had an awesome, awesome God opportunity today. This afternoon around 3:00 there was a knock at my door. I opened the door and it was two Mormon young ladies. I invited them in from the rain and the Holy Spirit took over from there. When the introductions were out of the way I began sharing my testimony of how God has grown me in my faith through trials.

As I shared with these ladies they told me they were amazed by the faith I had and the joy I showed in talking about Christ. I shared with them miracles God had done in my life also, but this was just the icebreaker. We started getting into God's Word and talking about how God knew us before we were born and how He already knew what His plans would be for us.

I shared with them Jeremiah 29:11 of how God knew the plans He had for us, of how He would prosper us and not harm us but give us a hope and a future. I went further to say as we seek Christ we will find Him. I shared how the Holy Spirit showed me how to apply this verse in my life. As I shared with these ladies I could sense in my heart that God was doing something.

We talked about Salvation how each person has a choice to accept or reject Christ's love and forgiveness that He paid by dying on the Cross. As I shared with these ladies about Hell I said it was never meant for Christians but it was for Satan, his angels and demons. Talking about Heaven I shared with them what you've been teaching on Sundays.

Before they left they asked if they could come by again I said sure. I was bold and told them I wanted to know how they came to know Christ. I also shared another important thing that you share so often it's not religion it's a relationship with Christ. I shared this several times as we talked. There so much more I could share but I'm praying for wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit through God's Word.

In part I’m reminded of Luke 12:11-12, where Jesus promises to provide what to say when we are in front of those who would judge us. I think more, though, of Proverbs 3:5-6.

What’s interesting here is that, under normal circumstances, Joy probably would not have been home when these two women came by. Only because she was recovering from surgery, and still had some ill side effects, was she at home.

Consider †his: You never know what circumstances God will use.

Several months ago I listened to pastor James MacDonald. I'm honestly no big fan of his style, but it was on a radio station I trust, so I listened. Besides, it was near the end of his particular segment. He mentioned in passing that he wasn’t interested in seeing someone’s stamp collection, but what that person was doing for Christ. I found him on Twitter, and asked him why he thought God couldn’t use a person’s stamp collection for His glory. The pastor’s response was that “God can use a horse’s ass,” but it’s better to use the right tools.

Apparently Pastor MacDonald doesn’t want to leave God open to using what He wishes to use.

God chose to use something that I thought was bad and undesirable for good instead.

Oh, and the TMI earlier? All of her symptoms, other than the expected tenderness of the incisions, disappeared shortly after these two ladies left.

Coincidence? Or God-incidence?

How many choices do we need?

I just read an interesting blog post from my e-friend, Scott Smith, on his Sarcastic Xtian blog, entitled "The Bondage of Choice." (Click the title of this post to link to it.)

My response was something I had learned from being a Mac fan and a Palm fan. People used to poo-poo Apple's Macintosh computer system (and that's really how it was designed, as a system combining hardware and software) because you had "fewer choices of applications" than with Microsoft Windows. Last Friday I chose to lay my trustworthy Palm Trēo 680 to rest, replacing it with a new Palm Prē Plus; again, the AT&T guy, chatting with my wife (who was also drooling over it and the iPhone), mentioned that the Pre had "fewer apps."

My question was: how many choices do I need?

Choice is important. God gives us the ability to choose. He also gives us the responsibility to choose wisely.

Consider †his: how many choices of gods do we have?

Those in the world would say we have dozens, maybe hundreds. Some religions, such as Buddhism, say that we will become gods as part of our travel through the wheel of enlightenment. New Age thinking echoes that, saying that each of us are little gods in our own right. Even the claiming-to-be-Christian Word of Faith movement steps into that realm with the idea that, since we are all created in the "image of God," obviously we can do anything God can do as long as we depend on our faith, just as He did when He spoke the universe into existence.

But how many choices do we really have?

Two. God and Satan.

There is only one road to God (John 14:6). All others lead away from God. That's Satan. We can call him by various different names, we can mask him in various different forms of "light" by using terms such as "enlightenment," or we can clothe him in our own image. It still doesn't work.

We only need two choices of gods, and only one is the right choice.