Gates of the City

It is amazing the how much attention is garnished by those predicting the Rapture and pointing to the all the calamities happening in the world as signs of the end. There is an insatiable appetite out there with people wanting to know what is going on and where. Some people’s whole lives are absolutely consumed with watching and keeping up with global events.

Dictators are falling while Islam is gaining influence and power all across the world, even President Obama welcomed the Muslim Brotherhood into the white house under the guise of peace and establishment of foreign policy while Islamic radicals burn the American and Israeli flags chanting “Death to America, the Great Satan” while promising to drive all Jews into the sea to cause them to cease from being a people.

We have volcanoes becoming active, recent earthquake and solar flares, CME’s and solar storms eroding our atmosphere, putting tension on our planet stressing the tectonic places. There have been unexplained noises in the heavens and under the earth that have been makes news. The weather is erratic, drought in one region – floods in another. Firestorms and freak arctic storms and tornadoes spreading destruction across the Land. Today a freak spring storm actually dumped two to four feet of hail in the Texas Panhandle this afternoon.

We have been having undetected meteorites and comets showing up, huge fireballs seen in the middle of the day, surely there are signs and wonders happening in the heavens. Last year we had Comet Elenin that had several notable facts from dates and alignments with both historical days of relevance and Biblical High Days, even the time of its alignment with the Sun and the Earth took place on 23,145 day since Israel’s rebirth and official acknowledgement by the UN as a legitimate nation of May 14, 1948, which is the number of verses that are used to make up the KJV of the Old Testament, or what we can accurately refer to as the Old Covenant which was given to Israel.

All these things are happening almost at a chaotic pace as the birth bangs get greater and closer together. All of these are truly signs of the times that Jesus told us to watch and pray about . . . that we may be found “worthy to escape to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Well, that is actually the point of this post, are we going to be found worthy after all our “watching and praying?” Jesus told us about the things to come to past that we should watch for  . . . but He also told us the things He will be looking for when He comes, will He find faith? Or is He just going to find a bunch of religious folks with insufficient oil in their lamps all still busily going about their ways doing their own thing while trying to get ahead or maybe busy being a “prepper” while incorporating a bit of Jesus into their soiled religious lives?

Paul says “Set your affection on things above and not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. So when Christ who is our life shall appear, then will you also appear with Him in glory.” So, is Jesus your life? Or is He just part of it? Have you given Him your whole heart, all your mind and strength? Or have you just given perhaps your tithe? Please, don’t fool yourselves and expect your tithes and offerings to do the work God has given unto your own hands to do . . . because they won’t. You cannot delegate your work to another and everyone must carry their own cross.

Do you love your neighbor? Do you love your enemies? Are you praying for those who spitefully use you, blessing those who curse you? Have you patiently endure being mistreated at home or work, for scripture says that is acceptable with God, even pleasing to Him? Or did you complain and stand up for your rights or leave your job because you don’t need to take that from people? I know you don’t think I understand, everyone has their excuse . . . but is it a reason that God accepts?

The cross we carry is our cross, it’s not Jesus’. We will never achieve what God has for us till we reckon ourselves dead to our own ambitions and goals and embrace Him as our Life. It is when we present ourselves as living sacrifices, placed and abandoned upon the altar of God that the Holy Spirit of Fire can fall on the sacrifice . . . not until then.

Now, I wrote this post because my heart was grieved after my last post Unity, it is like the precious ointment . . . in which I only had one view in a couple of days . . . an all time unbelievable low. With the little chart on my page I readily see all activity for the last 48 hours and you would have thought the plug got pulled. So I checked to see if it posted correctly and reposted it having some complications that I know sent out multiple email notices to my subscribers . . . but of course the topic was about “unity.”

I prayed about it and while the Lord didn’t tell me this audibly, I felt it was simply because the topic about unity . . . which simply doesn’t attract people’s attention. I am not trying to rebuke anyone, I am just being honest with you and myself. We all like being loners, and doing what we want when we want without having to seek or need anyone’s approval. The topic of unity doesn’t attract because we all know unity is going to cost us, just as it cost our Savior who died to make it a reality in the lives of His saints. Nevertheless,  fact is in these last days unity is going to be crucial. Not just a camaraderie, but godly saints allowing God to fitly join them in His body with a mind to work as the Jews in Nehemiah’s day, where “everyone with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand-held a weapon” as they rebuilt the breaches in the wall about Jerusalem.

Beloved, God is speaking unity now more than ever. Unity is the corporate fruit of overcomers; it is also the answer to a fervent prayer of a righteous Man.

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You. That they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

It is a sad thing when the enemies of the cross exhibit more unity than those who claim faith in the One who bore it for them. Help us Lord to humble ourselves lest we have believed in vain.