You Will Miss It, But He Won't Miss You!

Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. 1 Thessalonians 4:17

We have heard that one among us is so afraid of missing the Rapture of the church that he or she looks to the sky often so as to not be caught asleep or unaware. I have bad news for that person, you will miss it, but He will not miss you! 

There is a predator-prey relationship in Asia wherein a monkey is sometimes struck so fast by an eagle that the beast is killed upon impact. The Rapture is like that in its speed. The event will take place so fast that one man working in a field will be taken, and the other will be utterly surprised. Make no mistake! There is no sense in trying to sense the Rapture of the church! We will be snatched away from this world so quickly that not one of us will have time to do something stupid such as reaching out for some favorite possession in this world. 

Our Lord Jesus is so much more gentle than that eagle, but He does not give anything up in speed. Fear not, dear ones, we are going away in such a manner that an unbeliever standing nearby staring at us will be stunned by the instantaneous disappearance of God's children from this earth. We can hardly emphasize enough how quickly our exit will be facilitated by our Lord. So quick will it be that these words are entirely too long to show that "caught up" our brother Paul revealed to us in his letter to the Thessalonian believers. 

And, I believe with many brothers and sisters that it is coming so very soon! 

Love in Christ Jesus,
Bucky

Faith Time

...to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:26

In a long convalescence for injury or illness, one can expect a period of going downhill; getting worse news before much of the good news. And so it is with this present crisis. Our president must come before us and talk of some more time before the social distancing can be relaxed. 

A tough test of faith is always the finish line that is not seen; it is out there somewhere but it cannot be reached or sensed or figured by us through the methods we have available. As believers in Christ we are most familiar with this sort of test and extending this little crisis is just another challenge to endure for us. So the finish line was moved away a bit. We believe in Jesus and our faith is strong in Him. As it gets closer you may move it some more? Keep it up and our Lord may just remove us from this world to be with Him! We rejoice in faith time! 

Great and mighty is our Lord! 

Bucky

A Time Of Woe Or A Time Of Testing?

Who has woe?
Who has sorrow?
Who has contentions?
Who has complaints?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?  - Proverbs 23:29

We are on about Day 15 or so of the current crisis, and what lessons have I learned by this point? 1: NFDM, non-fat dry milk, does not last forever, and woe to the one who sticks his nose into the bucket to check! It is also not wise to gasp in surprise when ones nasal sense is assaulted by spoiled NFDM. 2: I am not one to do a lot of going out normally and a stay-at-home order does not change that substantially. However, we are to love our neighbor, and for some this thing is huge. 

Twice last night, I woke up to odd noises. Is cabin fever setting in already? While it is unlikely for myself, with my enduring only small changes, it may be so for others who are accustomed to being out and about nearly all the time. What might they turn to for solace in this time? The verse for today seems to  have no point, although we can easily see a theme. The next six verses explain the point quite thoroughly, and it involves alcohol, as in too much wine and wanting more. Some will turn for comfort to the wrong things in this time. A time of testing that could be much better endured in Christ, they will turn into a time of woe as they seek the methods of the world's lusts. 

For all of us, we must be careful how we pass a time of enforced solitude. Throughout God's word, woe comes as a consequence of sin. Let us have faith in the Lord Jesus, and keep this a time of testing. 

Love to  you in Christ Jesus, Bucky

Trust In Him

As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the LORD is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him. 2 Samuel 22:31

How do I relate to the perfect God? For some the way is to seek perfection in themselves and all that they do or say. I'm not sure how that has gone for them; as for me I missed the mark of my own standard of perfection a long time ago and seem to be diverging further each day. Most of us have quite a bit of the physical in our standard of perfection, and aging leads us away from ever attaining our goals. Maybe we can approach God's perfection with intellect and knowledge? We are each but a moment away from an injury or taking the road to dementia. Even the balance of chemicals in the blood flowing through our brains can quickly end any hope of perfection there. Spiritual then? A lifetime of religious training and practice to achieve a state of sinless peace with myself in a shaded porch overlooking the mountains of Israel...would end for me when the slightest temptation wandered by if I did not trust in God. 

Not only do I need to hold up that shield of faith from Ephesians 6, but I also need God as my shield by placing my trust in Him. My relation to the perfect God is through His love as seen in His Son Jesus. My Lord Jesus is the very word of God given to us in the form of a man born in a manger in Bethlehem. That little child born of divine conception changed everything for me. 

The Pharisees of old roared out their religious perfection to Jesus like young lions, and He did not have much regard for them. When I bleated out my imperfection in the repentant voice of the lost little sheep, He had regard for me, and He came and saved me. Trust in Him.

Bucky

Masked

And the eye of the adulterer watches for the twilight, thinking, 'No eye can see me,' and covers his face with a mask. Job 24:15

It's twilight and no one can see me, so I'll go ahead and put on a mask. There is nothing quite like putting a mask on to proclaim to one and all that a person is up to no good. At least until certain times come upon us and then with a wave of the magic plague wand, everyone is masked. Great, now how do we tell who is up to no good? 

We have always had difficulty looking at a person and knowing the bad from the good. Western fans can throw in the ugly, but that is a subject for another day. And why should we know from a glance how to judge a person when Jesus told us not to judge and all of us were born fallen sinners anyway? One can see why we would like all the crooks and criminals to go about in a black mask. 

Why do we believe in Jesus? Without Him, God would sit on the judgment throne at the end, and He would look out upon a sea of black masks. There is none righteous, no not one. Praise God that Jesus was sent to make all the difference for us! Those who believe in our Lord get to take off the black mask of sin and wear His white robe of righteousness. 

Hallelujah to the Lord on high!

Bucky

F.U.D.

Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. Deuteronomy 28:66

What an encouraging verse I found for today! Are those not the very words that we need in a time like this? Are we reading the same Bible verse? Like me, you have probably received such a ration of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) in the news over the past couple of weeks and months that it may seem like that curse on disobedience we see in our verse for today. Yes, there was a thing that preceded this curse, and it was that Israel obey the law. 

It was put simply to the new nation God had brought out of Egypt by His mighty power, obey and receive showers of blessings or disobey and receive curses such as that one in our verse for today. Reading the list of curses on disobedience in Deuteronomy 28, we might think that no one in Israel would ever disobey the law. And yet they did, often and at times with great zeal. So, are we living down a curse on disobedience? Maybe, but we should also recall the lesson of Job. 

Job did what was righteous in God's sight, and the Lord was proud to tell the Adversary about His child Job. And what happened when the Enemy was given leave to test Job's faith? Right, much loss first and then a skin disease. A disease? You mean one that might have been caused by a virus? Yes indeed, and Job had done nothing wrong to bring down any curse upon his head, or skin in this case. 

So, how about something encouraging from the word for those who live in the righteousness of faith in Jesus Christ: 

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. John 3:16

I ain't so great, it is the grace of Christ in me!

Bucky

Great Struggling

But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings. Hebrews 10:32

There will be struggles of faith this morning as some will feel that the body of Christ should have stood together, in one place, shoulder to shoulder for the worship service yesterday. Others will fear that church such as we have known it will never be seen again. (And won't the enemy trumpet this often in the ear today!) Yet others will look at yesterday as an opportunity to improve outreach in ways that were not available in 1918 when a great influenza pandemic swept across the land. 

Physically we may be isolated more by far than we were just a couple of weeks ago, and by this we have entered strange territory for many. Those who do not want change to their worship services found them much changed on this Sunday morning. Pastors who preached that online church is not the same as being there, found that online church was the only 'there' to preach in that day. There will be great struggling with this new mode of church during this temporary testing of our faith. And yes we do pray that it is temporary. We will work through this time with our Lord and Christ, and with each other in these new-fangled ways until the plague is lifted. 

And remember His words, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the age."

Bucky

And The Word Says... What?!

Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for,

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble"  1 Peter 5:5

The Lord must surely find it refreshing to see so many of His children striving to submit to the other in this time of doubt. And such scriptures each of them have to support their quick submission too!

Sound a bit sarcastic? Not seeing that in your neck of the woods? Does it go more like, "I'm right in this and the other Christian is wrong, why won't he or she obey God and submit to my rightness?" Have you found yourself at odds with a brother or sister in Christ over an issue that suddenly has become of critical importance during this time of trial? Do both of you have scriptures to support your rightness? Once upon a time, the Devil and the Christ met in the wilderness and both of them had scriptures too. 

Examine the scriptures used by our Lord and His Adversary. Do your arguments resemble one or the other? Still convinced you are in the right? Submit to your brother or sister in Christ. Wait? Me submit when I'm right in this? Yes, the Word calls upon us to submit one to another. I cannot answer for you, but I would rather be humble and have grace than be proud and know I'm right. 

Love to you in Christ our Lord,

Bucky

Where Is He?

In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. John 14:2

Yesterday we read about faith and how the expression of that faith even among us may be different. Today, we are going to answer a question that has surely come up in past pandemics and will again in this one. Where is our Lord Jesus in all of this suffering? 

Jesus has already answered that question for us in our verse for today. Our Lord has gone before us to a place we will go when He returns to take us there, and He is busy getting that place ready for us. 

Aha! The world jumps up to say, He is gone and He is busy elsewhere and does not know what is going on down here. That is already answered as well, but before we go on toward infinity, those who refuse to believe in our Lord Jesus will never be satisfied with any answer we might give from the scriptures. Faith is simply not something we can reach out for, grasp, and hand to each one who needs it. Faith is more like a seed planted in ground prepared to receive it. In many an unbeliever the ground is not yet ready for that seed of faith. 

If the ground were ready, they would, as we do, rejoice in the message of our Lord in John 14:2. We know where Jesus is and what He is doing until the time of His return. 

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

Bucky

The Faith You Have

The faith you have, keep to yourself before God. Blessed is the one who does not judge himself by what he approves. Romans 14:22

Judge not that you be not judged. We are going to see a variety, even a disparity, in expressions of faith during this time of crisis in the world. One may say, "I have faith in God, we will gather as usual in our church." Another may say, "We will obey that authority God has placed over us in the government, and we will gather only in small groups during this season." One may have great faith and the other little faith, but which one is which we do not judge. That one has faith in Jesus Christ, and this other one does too. Excellent, we are glad and praise God for them both! 

You and I may have a great estimation of what is big whopping faith and what is not so much faith. And yet, our Lord Jesus came to save us all. We are going to see all these differing expressions of faith, but...no judging! Trust in the Lord and pray for more faith for yourself as I do the same for me, that we might give love and comfort during this time and avoid judging any of God's children - our siblings in Christ. For all of us who believe in Jesus the Christ must be in constant prayer for those who do not yet believe. 

The test is upon us, let us not fail by judging our brothers and sisters in Christ! 

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

Bucky

Yes, Little Sheep

All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

In our younger sheep days we wandered far, far off the ranch and away from the fold where our Lord would have us to be. As prodigal sheep we went out into the cruel world to enjoy the pleasures of sin and forgot to write the Father who loves us. And so the Father and the Son let us go our way for a while until the world left us washed up on a far shore, broken in spirit, and laying flat among the wreckage of our former strength. 

"Ha, ha," the world laughed at us in scorn, "that one won't be of any use to the Lord!" 

And we believed that scoffing and derisive laughter until one great day we suddenly thought of the Lord. The Lord! Of course, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we believe in Him! And the little sheep got up shouting, "I found Him! I found Him! Bouncing on our little sheepy legs and squeaking in our little sheepy voice, as we repented of our way and looked back to see the Good Shepherd.

 

"Yes, Little Sheep, you found Me," the Shepherd says, "Now let us go home, dear prodigal, to the Father who loves us. 

Have a happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bucky

Happy 3/16!

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.  John 3:16

Having observed Pi day on 3/14, I couldn't just let March 16 go by without holding up John 3:16 for all to see once more. 

Look at the world as reported in the news media today. Does it look at all lovable? Do you read reports of disease, war, mayhem, and people acting hateful toward one another? Of course you do, we see it all the time in the news media of our time. It was no different in the day of our Lord Jesus, and yet He told Nicodemus those words we read in John 3:16. "For God so loved the world..." This world we see all around us, horrible news and all, God loved so much that He gave His only begotten Son. And that wasn't the end of it.

Had God just given His Son, the story would have closed at the cross. Two big things came to us from God's Son, faith and everlasting life. We believe in Him, we have faith that our Lord, God's Son, rose from the grave and went to be with His Father. We believe Him when He said that He would return and bring us home to be with Him forever; that is faith. We believe Him when He spoke of everlasting life and coming to the Father through Him. Faith and everlasting life are so intertwined in the Son that this wonderful verse concludes with them. Believe in the Son, Jesus Christ, and have eternal life. Praise God! 

Happy 3:16 Day!
Bucky

It Starts With

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. John 3:16

If they are afraid, then give them comfort. It starts with, "for God so loved the world..." It seems so simple, and yet we often forget that we are the comforters along with the dear Spirit of God who is the Comforter. We cannot do anything without the Lord, but with His Spirit in us we do everything with the Lord. With panic all around us, we have good reason to spread the good news. Also, we can comfort one another, as we too might feel the stirrings in the flesh of revulsion and panic over the spread of this latest disease. Christians in ye olden times often gained great witness for the Lord by comforting the sick and dying even during tymes of, tymes?, rampant plague. Our opportunity is upon us! 

Why are they cancelling all the events? I have been reading the second of my historical books on the influenza pandemic of 1918, and one thing not always done in those days was to cancel big events such as parades. It cost them dearly and we remember from the stories handed down to us by our grandparents of the horrors seen in that pandemic. Let them cancel the events, and let us pray with them at every opportunity. 

For God so loved me and you too! 

Bucky

Must We Address This?

It shall come to pass in that day
That a great panic from the LORD will be among them.
Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor,
And raise his hand against his neighbor's hand. Zechariah 14:13

Our little town is out of hand sanitizer this week; the Front Range is short of toilet paper in stores. And tutorials on hand washing have become all the rage in the media. The panic buying is caused by anxiety and not the actual infection, a psychology expert states in the news. Hey, anxiety, I can address that; I have quite a bit of experience in anxious thoughts that never come to pass. I may not have the lingo of a psychology degree, but I do have the hard-won education of experience and counseling. On the other hand, what if this is that day, the one the Lord prophesied through Zechariah? 

If that day has come to pass, then all we can do is spread the good news of Jesus Christ. No expert standing up to shout, "Relax, people!" is going to stop the panic that the Lord sends. No stories from the anxiety-suffering crowd will stem the flood of panic as neighbors both seize hands and raise hands to stop their neighbor's hand. If we must address that day, then our only hope is in the Lord. The Lord God may stop the panic in His good time, or He may snatch away those who believe in Him (and wouldn't that ratchet up the panic a few notches!), but in that day the panic belongs to the Lord and He will have His way. 

Praise God that His way has a name, and it is Jesus! 

Bucky

My Redeemer Lives!

For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth. Job 19:25

In the middle of his rant, Job laments, "Oh, that my words were written! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book!" A number of centuries later, we are here to testify that indeed Job's words were inscribed and what a book it became! The first mention of our Redeemer in the Word of God comes all the way back in the book of Job as this statement by the man himself stands out like a pearl in a mud pie. (I refer to the words of Job's ranting, not the rest of the Bible! Aaagh! Don't bring out the tongue lashes of castigation!). 

Job knew by faith of course, in exactly the same way that we know by faith that once more our Lord Jesus, our Redeemer, will stand on the earth. Job did not live to see his Redeemer stand in the court and tell the high priest that He was the Christ, the Son of God. (That story in Matthew 26) Yet Job still knew by rock solid assurance in faith that Jesus would stand.  And in that same statement of His divinity, our Lord told the high priest that He would be seen again...sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Now that is a promise of a divine appointment. Still, an appointment wherein we desire to be with Him, and not standing against Him as that high priest was doing. 

Great is the name of our Redeemer!

Bucky

His Love Never Fails

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 1 Corinthians 13:8

The source of love is God as shown in His Son, who died on the cross to save us. This great love does not fade away or grow dim with age. My behavior cannot beat it down or chase it away. My fear of the dark place does not make His love any less. His love is the neverending and greatest love. His two greatest of commandments are about love and by them all the law and the prophets are satisfied. Faith reminds us that all He does is grounded in that greatest love. Although it is poured out into a leaky vessel, His great love is undiluted and flows unsparingly from His throne of grace. Once more we are reminded of that great verse, "For God so loved the world..."  Rejoice today in His great love,

Bucky

The Lord - No Change!

“For I am the LORD, I do not change;
Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Malachi 3:6

A change may be much on your mind today; it certainly weighs on my mind this early morning. Therefore the verse for this morning comes from a search on 'change' in the Bible. Here we have a declaration from the Lord and a consequence of it. The Lord our God does not change, there is of course no need to change perfection. And Israel gained a benefit from that as a consequence. All those living in this latter age can claim the same benefit. 

One might wonder what it is about the Lord that prevents His consuming of Israel and us. What has not changed in the Lord? Justice would call for the sentence to be carried out, and the Lord is just. Do we dare depend upon some other quality of the Lord's to prevent the consuming fire of His judgment? We may recall a verse this morning that begins, "For God so loved..." 

That verse is answer enough for me and you! 

Bucky

One More Lie

The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  2 Thessalonians 2: 9-10

A character in a show that tells naught but lies can be difficult to keep up with, as I found out last night when one more lie fooled me and the ending of the season brought surprise. As everything in this life can be used by the Lord as a lesson for those who believe in His Son, this situation was no different. That, I thought, is the way that many will be deceived by the lawless one, the Antichrist who comes near the ending of this world. 

Many will be taken in by the initial deception of the evil one when this man of lawlessness comes on the wings of iniquities. However, those who believe in the Lord Jesus are not to be fooled. And yet, if we should attempt to see through the layers of deception and the web of lies with only our intellect or wisdom, then we are doomed to fall. Should any of us enter the final times unguarded by the Lord's Spirit, then that one more lie will deceive him. 

Of course our one hope is in the Lord Jesus Himself, and part of that is an escape and a reunion all in one. We do not expect to meet the revealed abomination of desolation when the Rapture of the Church is believed to come before this person enters the world stage.

Great is our hope in Him!

Bucky

Hello, Thievery!

Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don't wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief. Revelation 3:3

A person parks the car, gets out, and leaves his cell phone in the console. He decides not to lock the vehicle because he will only be in the salon for a little while and no one would steal his older model cell phone anyway. As he walks out with his freshly cut hair, he stops at the stunning revelation that his entire car is gone! Hello, thievery! 

Unexpected is the word of the day when the thief strikes in the time we let our guard sleep just a little bit. And this is our Lord we are reading about here! Why would He sneak up on us as a thief does at night? No sneakiness involved of course, only a sleepiness on the part of those who should be standing watch. 

So, therefore we Christians must work up a rotating guard schedule to make sure we do not all sleep at night, or get caught celebrating together at Christmas, or... wait a minute! The Lord was warning us of spiritual sleepiness; of relaxing in grace to the point that our morals slip-slide away back down to the pit from which our Savior raised us up as a newly reborn child of Christ the King. Backsliding is a spiritually sleepy way to fail away from Him! 

Love in Christ the King,
Bucky

Good To Love

From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. Mark 7:24-25

Jesus our Lord wanted a break? The stirrings of what we call fame were present long ago. At that time they did not have social media to work with, but the unclean spirits of the time knew when Jesus was around. Did this one tell the woman? The scripture does not say that, but from other incidents in the Bible we know that is a possibility. The important part may be her response though: she came to the Lord and fell at His feet. 

Would this woman have done this to ask a favor for herself? Maybe, other women in the Bible did so. But in this case she had a daughter who needed the Lord in a bad way. The love for our neighbors, especially those close enough to us to be known as children, spouses, or family, may get us away from ourselves enough to do the loving sacrifice on their behalf. It is good to love. 

Have a great March day in our Lord Jesus!
Bucky

Repentance Before Grace

Let grace be shown to the wicked,
Yet he will not learn righteousness;
In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly,
And will not behold the majesty of the LORD.  Isaiah 26:10

Another argument against universal salvation is this message given to Isaiah. To the unrepentant sinner, grace is as though nothing happened. That which Christ Jesus gave His life to obtain for us is cast on the scrapheap by those who refuse to repent of their evil ways. Even if such a one were to enter into Heaven, his ways would remain unjust. 

Now there is a thought that refuses to come easily. Try to imagine being the only evil person in Heaven, right there under God's all-seeing gaze. Not like here where there is some veil or distance between us and the blessed lands, but right there where that person could turn and see the throne of God Himself. Talk about being the odd one out! And it would be so much worse as the guilt and shame could hardly be measured with perfected ones all around, living forever in the grace of God and in perfect righteousness, while you alone cower as the only unsaved one. Far better to repent of my way and obtain the wonderful grace of Christ the Lord right here in this world! 

Still doesn't compute though; no evil person will enter into God's Heaven. Just can't get the imagination to go there. Praise God for that! 

Bucky

A Few Years

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD.  Genesis 4:3

An infamous incident follows hard upon this verse, but today I wanted to look at that phrase at the start: in the process of time it came to pass... During that time, Cain has not only been born, but grown up to the point where he becomes a farmer of the ground and able to offer the fruit of his labor to the Lord. We do not know for sure what age this might be, and as they lived so long back in those days it might even be longer than we might think. Cain was perhaps in his 20's at that time, maybe even his 40's. 

Somewhere in among those early years, Cain might have asked the question Adam had come to dread: "Dad, what's a girl?" No, not that one. The inevitable question about that garden over there, and Cain being the farmer would be the more likely to ask. 

"Why can't I go farm in there, Dad? Why does that flaming sword keep us out, Dad?" 

Adam, being a little slow of thought that day from the dreaded question finally coming to be spoken, tells it like it was,"Well, son, your mother was talking to this serpent, see, and before I knew it she handed me this fruit and I was standing there naked." 

Eve immediately jumps up on the defensive, "Blaming it all on me, eh? Who stood there like a blind ox and didn't stop me even though he knew it was wrong?" 

Meanwhile, Morty the blind ox, also known as the family tractor, is standing outside thinking, "Now what did I do?" 

Defensiveness may not be pretty, but it usually follows an offense. We may be helpless to get the old brain functioning in time to stop that defensive reaction, but it was the person on the offensive that brings it out of us. Finding a gentler answer, keeping the tongue from jumping up in flames, and stopping that defensive reaction can come to us by the work of God's Holy Spirit. 

Lovely little snow this morning! 
Bucky