WAT.

It’s About Christianity

Found this on a friend’s blog:

“…Thought #4-If the world ended today, I would not be ready.

The last one was not actually a frequent thought until recently. Feels like people talk about the end of times, the Antichrist, and all that scary scary scary stuff.

So I’ve decided to do some research on what is supposed to happen at the end of times. Because quite honestly, I have no clue. Something about rapture? (dunno what that is though.) mm…Jesus comes back, and then the world goes into frenzy and life is extremely extremely hard, and then that’s it? Yeah, see, I really don’t know anything because that probably is not exactly how it goes.”

First thing I want to say is,

Right?
It’s weird how people don’t really teach on the end times.
But
I think it’s mostly because we can’t know.
If you can’t know, why bother to keep trying to figure it out?

One thing that I’ve been thinking a lot about though, is what
Francis Chan (one of the main pastors of Passion) said in this
one sermon…

He said that the American church focuses too much on learning more about God and less focus on actually doing what God says. That it’s really not important to try to figure out what the next step is, what God’s gonna do next. It’s more important to go out and DO what the Bible says.

So despite all the weird language and questionable phrases in Revelations (Seven Spirits of God?) I hope that she finds blessings even if she may not necesarily find answers to what exactly is going to happen during the end times (because it’s confusing). I think what we really need to do is wait expectantly (not passively, but in anticipation, living each day with the knowledge that God keeps his promises), knowing that God will move and has been moving.

So my church has been doing a study on Genesis, and man, there’s a lot of hidden stuff in there, like how God keeps his promises absolute, shown in the way he protects the lineage of Esau and Ishmael, and how easily sins repeat themselves through the generations, even in people heralded as fathers of faith. One thing we studied in the past week or so was the account of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac. Many consider this an example of God’s cruelty, and ask, “How could a loving God ask anyone to sacrifice their own son?”

To be honest, I can’t know why exactly God told Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac, because it’s not explicitly stated, but I just think it’s interesting to compare Abraham and Isaac with God the father and Jesus. I was just thinking about the ordeal that Abraham had to go through while going up that mountain. Imagine how many animals and crops and servants he would have given up if only God would let him keep his son! But this is where faith comes in and this is why I personally think that Abraham is a father of my faith. Abraham goes up that mountain and prepares to sacrifice his son because he trusts in God. He trusts that there is something bigger than him, something that is leading his path and taking him where he need to go, and most importantly, a being that is alltogether loving and good. He believes that this being can redeem this action of murder somehow and it will be beneficial to the rest of the human race SOMEHOW. It doesn’t make sense to him, but he knows that the being is good and he just goes and does what he is told (similar to what I said before about Revelations and the end times). It is because of his belief that he can go up to that mountain and sacrifice his son. Imagine how relieved he was when God tells him to stay his knife!

Think, now, about Jesus. God knows that sending Jesus can redeem His children and all of its sin. Imagine what God could have given up in order to save His one and only son from a humiliating death on a crucifix. But He didn’t. We are saved and redeemed. He chose you, His child, over the animals, crops, all the other things that he could have given up, and His son

for you.

So this is a challenge for me.
It is a question of how far I am willing to follow God’s plan, no matter how unpopular it may be, no matter how unnerving. Am I willing to still follow, knowing that God will somehow redeem it in the end?

I just want to end this post on a final note. My small group leader gave this analogy-

God’s plan is like a choose your own adventure book. You know those books where you used to use your fingers and pencils and rulers, etc. as save points so that if you died, you could go back and make a different choice. We, the readers, have free will to choose whatever paths we wish to travel down, whatever adventure we wish to take part in, but in the end, God is the author of the book. He makes sure that you end up where he wants you to end up.

So.

Row Row Fight the Power.