crazy stuff

Not sure what your views are on eschatology, but I'm pretty sure that even if this company means well, they have certainly opened themselves up to serious ridicule. Apparently, this website has designed a service that will send a last ditch "get your life right with God" email to up to 62 of your unsaved friends and family in the event that you are raptured up to heaven and they are "left behind." If a group of people employed by the company and strategically placed all over the country fail to log in to their account for six straight days, the rapture has begun and the "get right with God quick" email is launched. All this for only 40 dollars a year!! The kicker to me however, is their attempt to get people to hand over their encrypted financial passwords and statements to them for "safe keeping" so that your life's savings doesn't end up in the hands of the anti christ government.
Anyways, the reason I am posting about it is because i stumbled across another blog that was criticizing it and I was amazed at the hatred expressed toward christians in general (as i said, the site is a bit fishy and deserves some criticism.) There were statement about how all the christians being gone would be like heaven on earth, and how if that happened we would finally be allowed to teach science and save the environment ( i didn't know christians hated the environment). The one that stuck out to me was from a 16 year old who said the world would be better off anyway without all of us judgmental bigoted hypocrites just looking for an excuse to tell me why I deserve hell.
What a terrible tragedy for anyone to depict followers of Jesus in this way, and as I read it, I felt the Holy Spirit convicting me. Not because I have blatantly wished hell on anyone (ok, maybe a few drivers, but i repented) but because too often I don't see like Jesus did. It can become too easy to stand back as a christian and look at people living in sin, homeless, addicted to drugs, committing terrible crimes, and subconsciously think, "why don't they get it?" What is their deal? Or I will get done preaching a message and find students doing exactly the opposite of what we just discussed!!( don't tell my boss that the students don't always listen to me, I keep assuring him they do:) It is in these moments I feel the Holy Spirit remind me of my life before Christ. Where would I be if God had not rescued me? Who am I to judge anybody for not responding when and how I think they should. Please allow me t end this rather long post by sharing three things I believe God re-spoke to me.

1. people (even people whose actions are beyond frustrating) are not the enemy, they are the prize. Eph. 6:12 says our war is not with people, but with the powers of Satan. 2cor. 4:4 says that people have their eyes blinded to truth by Satan and we are called to be salt and light. This doesn't mean people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions, simply that Satan is behind it all.

2. Love needs to be the trademark of every christian. Just like golden arches are to mickey d's and the swoosh is to nike, Christians need to be identified by love. Remember it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance, (rom.2:4) We are never going to argue and bash someone lost into the kingdom. Am I responding to this broken world in Love?

3. Pray for eyes like Jesus. Matt. 9:36 tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion, not righteous indignation. Jesus saved that for those who pretended to be religious, but with the sinner, he always modeled love and compassion. By no means should we confuse love with tolerance. Jesus told the prostitute caught in the act to go and sin no more AFTER he showed her love. We can't live our lives on a christian soap box telling people to "be like us"


Take a moment to thank God for His unreasonable love and ask Him to make your heart softer towards those who are far from Him. I never want my testimony to be that I loved God, but never stretched my faith to believe that ALL people are in need of what God has so graciously given me.........love, forgiveness, life everlasting.