Rapture Ready!

Today's Passage: Mark 13:32-37

Memory Verse: Phillipians 4:8

Saturday February 20,2010

Hello Friends and "Lifers"! It's Saturday and I realize my first order of business is finally unpacking the bags Yas and I used last weekend (Valentine's). Pitiful right? Anyway, the Lord quickly brings to my mind the 41/2 years I lived out of my suitcase while in college. You see, college kids who traveled a lot like Yas and I had a bag we rarely unpacked because every weekend we were going to sing, or coming home. During the week we would wash the clothes in that bag and exchange them for different ones. But the bag was always full. We called it being "Road Ready".

What if we applied this concept to Christian life? The bible says in Mark 13:32-33 not even the angels know when Jesus is coming back for us. God admonishes us to watch and pray because we don't know when He's coming back for us. In other words, make sure you live every day like a person in an airport terminal, ready for flight. Make sure you're always ready for Christ's glorious entrance for the purpose of our departure. Think about it: if we really lived this way, would we so easily fall into sin? Would we allow the enemy to sift us without a fight? Would we continue to judge or ignore the broken and addicted among us? Would we risk getting caught in that hidden sin we think God doesn't see? No, we wouldn't. As a matter of fact, we would never be caught with our spiritual bags empty.

The challenge today is to take our eyes off the things of this world and look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Don't let your focus be on anything that has no function in heavenly places. All the material things of life (e.g. image, money, cars, houses, possessions, etc.) have one thing in common: they CAN'T help you get there, but they CAN hold you back. Put them in their places and let your gaze remain on God. We can't afford to be caught with our bags full of temporal things. The reason is, as Pastor Nette taught us, when it's time to get on "the flight" those things won't pass through customs anyway. So find things that are true, right, pure, and holy. Pack them and be ready because we're going somewhere......right?

Prayer:
Father I know you have a place for me in Heaven with You. Therefore, I realize I cannot allow myself to come into agreement with this world. Because I don't belong here, I'll commit to live everyday in preparation for Your return. Give me the strength to walk by faith, not by sight so that I may enter into Your glorious kingdom....in Jesus' Name, Amen!