I'm very worried I'll mess everything up. It's all I have ever done really, from childhood.
It worries me. I need help. At least this time I know I need help, and where to go to get it, (after my dad died when I was younger I really was lost) but I'm still myself, who I have not found to be very reliable or trustworthy...
You know, all things considered...
We can't look back, but how do we know what looking back looks like?
I bet
@Rescued One might enjoy the answer too.
First of all.... we are saved by grace and not by works. You have been saved, and you are being saved, and you will be saved. It's not up to you.
Matthew 19:24-26
"Again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, "Then who can be saved?" And looking at them Jesus said to them, "With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
Psalm 68:5-6
A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, is God in His holy habitation. God makes a home for the lonely; He leads out the prisoners into prosperity, only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
What is God's holy habitation?
1 Corinthians 3:11-16
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
YOU are God's holy habitation! If you're building on Christ, you might lose everything you build
but you will be saved.
Second, this op is about the rapture versus the second coming so I'm going to keep this digression brief and limited to this post. Consider what Paul said about his own salvation.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.
This passage occurs in a letter written fairly early in Paul's apostleship. Here Paul frames the reward as a contingency. There is an implied question of his potential disqualification. Is this simply figurative, or does Paul genuinely doubt he will "
win." What would be the nature of this winning? Are we not all standing on the victory of another? Are we not all standing in faith upon and relying on the greatest victory in the entirety of human history? Did Jesus make Genghis, Alexander, and Caesar all look like amateurs when he defeated sin and death and provide a means of eternal life for
billions? If so, then Paul's analogy, its contingent nature, and any lack of assurance he possessed is couched in Christ irreversible defeat of sin and death. The wreath, the crown, the Olympians of his day wore had already begun to wilt before it was placed on the victor's head. That is not the case with eternal life.
2 Timothy 4:6-8
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.
This passage occurs in a letter Paul wrote near the end of his apostleship, 10+ years after his letter to the Corinthians. It appears he knows his life will soon end since he is being "
poured out," and poured out as an offering. There's not coming back from an offering. He believes he has fought the good fight but his epistolary readily demonstrates a life of frequent threat and often ineffective preaching (from a statistical pov) and very, very messy Church (and others) tried to clean up with sound teaching. How can he claim to have fought the good fight? His answer is simple, direct, very blunt:
He kept the faith. Those words can be interpreted to mean either he kept believing, or he behaved in a manner consistent with salvation in Christ....., or both.
All any Christian has to do is believe and God is gifting the faith upon which that faith is predicated. Are there matters of degrees of faith. Most assuredly. Are there matters of degrees of salvation? Most assuredly not.
Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Mark 11:22-23
And Jesus *answered saying to them, "Have faith in God. "Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him.
Can a Christ-denier wield such faith?
Luke 12:42-48
And the Lord said, "Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? "Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. "Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. "But if that slave says in his heart, 'My master will be a long time in coming,' and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.
Floggings in heaven? Count me out! Yet... who among the purchased slaved (you have been purchased and are not your own, right?) has never committed deeds worthy of flogging while in the Master's service? These acts are the very condition from which we have been purchased and from which we will one day be transformed beyond further corruptibility.
Or so we are promised.
Do you believe it?
If so, then act like it.
Even Paul had his problems, and they included doubt and questioning God. As far as we know God never removed the thorn in Paul's side (which I believe was a flaw in Paul's own character). God saved Paul in spite of Paul. He will save me in spite of myself, and he will save you in spite of yourself, too.
I'm very worried I'll mess everything up.
Well then, start with the following,
- Always rejoice in the LORD.
- Let your gentleness be known.
- Pray and supplicate with thanksgiving.
- Think about honorable, righteous, pure, lovely things and those of good repute.
- Practice what Paul taught.
Do
that. Do it often. Do it as many times as it takes. Read it every day (Php. 4:4-8). Read it twice a day. Read it as many times as it takes. Get it inside you and have it do its work.
What time is it
right now where you are? After you've look ed at the clock, look at yourself. Literally look at yourself. Are you sitting in a chair? Is your rump placed firmly in a chair? Are your feet touching the floor? Are you sinning right now?
Right now, in this moment,
are you messing up everything? Are you messing up everything right now? If the answer is "
No," where then is the worry?
If that thorn in your side returns, give it to God. You might die with it, but you will be saved. If you DM me I will give you a few basic pointers regarding how worry and anxiety can be overcome and their nature but that too will be brief.
Now, back to the fray!
The rapture is not an event that is separated from the final return of Christ. Any attempt to use Jesus' words about the comparison to what happens in the tribulation and what happened in the days of Noah to justify a separated raptured position is misguided because in the days of Noah the ones who were taken away got destroyed and the ones who remained went on to live in a covenant relationship with God
.
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