Understanding the Second Coming of Christ by Creflo Dollar

The Second Coming of Christ is an event that has always drawn a variety of responses, ranging from joy to fear. For those who have never heard of the Rapture or the Second Coming, the response is sometimes one of unbelief when the topic is introduced. The idea that millions of people will be removed from the earth at a single moment seems inconceivable to the natural, carnal mind. However, understanding the Second Coming is vital to developing faith, and not fear, regarding end-time events.

The Second Coming of Christ is an event that will take place in two distinct installments, according to biblical teachings. The first phase is the Rapture. Though the word “rapture” is not specifically mentioned in the Bible, the term used to describe what will take place during this event is “caught up.” The Rapture is the “catching away “of the body of Christ from the earth before God unleashes judgment on those who have rejected Him.

There are twenty-six passages of scripture that mention the Rapture. This is an event that is reserved for the Church—the true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an event that will completely elude the world—they won’t even know it happened until the Church is gone. It is designed to protect and deliver Believers from the wrath of God that is coming upon the earth (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
The Apostle Paul describes exactly what will happen during the Rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17.

He says, "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Christians who have died will be resurrected from their graves at the sound of the trumpet and will be raptured along with Believers who are currently alive and in expectation of the Lord. The people of the world will not see or hear the Lord when He calls for His people during the Rapture. When the catching away of the Church takes place, it will usher in seven years of the greatest tribulation the world has ever seen.

The second phase of the Second Coming of Christ is His Glorious Appearing, which will take place after the Tribulation. This is the actual physical appearance of Christ before the entire world when He returns to the earth with His saints. It is an event that will affect all humanity, and will be seen by every person under the sun (Matthew 24:29-30). When Jesus physically returns, He will set up His kingdom on the earth.

The catching away of the Church can literally take place at any moment, which is why we must always be prepared for it. Christians must make sure they are aligning their lives with the Word of God and walking in love. Obedience and cultivating a spirit-led lifestyle are the keys to being prepared for the Rapture. It is not a fictitious event; it will actually happen.

Only God knows the day and hour of the Rapture, which is why we can discard any false prophecies foretelling the specifics of its occurrence. The Glorious Appearing can only take place after the Rapture, which is why we want to be in position to be “caught up” every moment of our lives. By living our lives according to the Word, we can ensure that we are on the winning side of the Rapture and the physical appearing of Christ. There is nothing to fear when the Bible is our final authority.

When God Is Silent During Difficult Times

I have a word for all of us living through the global challenges of the 21st century and in particular for those who on a personal level are facing what you would call the worst day of your life: Everything is going to be all right. I believe that. ... I believe it because it is a great promise from God Himself: "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28, NKJV).

I don't say this glibly or cheaply but with deep conviction and full assurance of faith. Everything is going to be all right. This is the overarching message of the gospel. God is going to set right a world gone wrong, and God is going to set right what's gone wrong in your life. God deals in both immensity and minutia. As the supreme intelligence behind the laws of physics, God is the engineer of the universe, and He is interested in both cosmology (the study of the very, very large) and quantum mechanics (the study of the very, very small).
God's interest in the whole range of astrophysics is nothing compared with God's interest in the whole range of human experience. God is concerned about His creation on a cosmic scale and on the personal level. God intends to redeem all of creation through the work of the cross, and He is also concerned about the tiny episodes in your individual life, even to the extent that He bothers to count the hairs on your head (see Matt. 10:30). God has a plan to redeem the cosmos, and God has a plan to take care of you. Everything is going to be all right.

So we continue to pray, to trust God, to build our faith on God's Word, to frame our worldview from Paul's masterpiece epistle to the Romans (especially chapter 8), and, despite any and all evidence to the contrary, we dare to believe that everything is going to be all right. We do this because we believe God is in charge and that He loves us and has promised to intervene in our lives with love and grace. Of this the apostle Paul was certain. He was firmly and absolutely "persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38-39).

Of course we want everything to be all right now. This is our common human experience. But because everything is not all right in the present moment, we are prone to panic and forget the promise. So remember this: In this present moment, you are enveloped in the love of God in Christ Jesus. Right now there is nothing that can separate you from that love. Everything is going to be all right, but the work of making everything all right may take some time. So, having believed the promise of God, you simply wait in hope for God to keep His promise and work all things together for good.

From time to time we hear a story that reminds us how God can work all things together for good. Here's one that I believe will encourage you:

Antony Flew grew up in a Christian home in London, where his father was a prominent Methodist minister. No doubt Antony's parents hoped and prayed that their son would follow them in their Christian faith. The young man was extremely gifted intellectually and, as a boy, attended a school for children of Methodist ministers, founded by John Wesley, the father of Methodism. While at that school, Kingswood School in Bath, England, Flew began to abandon the faith of his parents. He tells the story himself in this manner: "By the time I reached my fifteenth birthday, I rejected the thesis that the universe was created by an all-good, all-powerful God." Antony Flew had become an atheist.

Later, as an undergraduate at Oxford, Flew attended the weekly meetings of C. S. Lewis's Socratic Club, often engaging Lewis in debates concerning the existence of God. Flew went on to become the world's leading intellectual atheist, publishing some 40 works on atheism and often being described as atheism's foremost "evangelist." Flew also regularly engaged leading Christian apologists in debates concerning the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, and life after death. We can only imagine the pain this caused his Christian parents, who were giving their lives in Christian ministry. We can only imagine how they continued to pray for their son.

In 2007, I was returning from India and was changing planes in New York. During the brief layover I walked into an airport bookstore to find some reading material for the final flight home. While browsing in the philosophy section, I noticed what appeared to be a significant book: There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind. The author?You guessed it—Antony Flew. I was stunned! I bought the book and read the whole thing on my flight back to Kansas City. It's probably the best apologetic work I've ever read on defending the existence of God. But it's more than just an argument for the existence of God; it is a fascinating autobiographical story of Flew's long, slow journey from atheism to belief in God.
Antony Flew is now 85 years old, and his parents have long since died. But their prayers live on—prayers that have now been answered. The strange and wonderful thing is, Antony Flew will probably end up doing more to bring people to belief in God through his late-in-life conversion following a lifetime of atheism than if he had followed his father into Christian ministry. I'm not suggesting that God was responsible for Flew's atheism—I don't believe that—but I am suggesting that this is a marvelous example of God working all things together for good. I suspect Flew's Methodist parents would agree.

How bad a day was it for Reverend and Mrs. Flew when their son announced that he had become an atheist? Could it perhaps have been the worst day of their lives? But that wasn't the end of the story. Flew's parents did not live to see the answer to their prayers, but their prayers have been answered nonetheless, and in some strange mystical way we really can't understand right now, I believe that this couple will one day indeed rejoice. They will laugh with joy, they will give praise to their God, and they will shake their heads as they wonder and marvel over the incredible power of God to turn their story around.

Could it be people like Reverend and Mrs. Flew whom the writer of Hebrews is referring to in Hebrews 11:13 when he writes, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them"?

In this life we will have some bad days. Some may be so bad that recovery seems impossible. But all things are possible to him who believes. On the worst day of your life, perhaps the best thing you can do is remember this promise: "All things work together for good," and dare to believe that your situation, too, will work out for good and that somehow everything is going to be all right. Remember, your times are in God's hand. He is the artist who has promised to weave all things in such a way that in the end your story will truly be a story of beauty, a work of art, God's masterpiece that can never be marred or touched, His beautiful tapestry of grace.

charismamag.com

How to Give Life to Your Dreams

by Joyce Meyer God is always on the move. He created us to have goals and dreams, to be reaching for more in our life in Christ. When God gives you a dream, it's like becoming pregnant: you conceive (think or imagine) a vision of the "new thing" He's planned for you. Now you have to make it through the pregnancy and get to full-term to birth the fulfillment of it (see Isaiah 43:18-19).




Ecclesiastes 5:3 says, For a dream comes with much business and painful effort.… This is why many people abort their dreams before they reach full-term. God plants a seed (dream) in them and they become pregnant. But when they find out it will take effort, be costly and uncomfortable to complete their preparation for the birth, they decide it wasn't really God's will after all and go and do something else.
I want to encourage you to go through the hard part because if you give up, you will never be completely satisfied. There will be a part of you that doesn't feel settled or fulfilled.
So how do we successfully make it through preparation and give birth to our God-given dreams? Here are three keys to help you get there.

1. The Power of Putting Your Expectation in God

When a woman is pregnant, we say she's "expecting." This is part of what we must do to reach full-term and not give up or abort the dream God put in us. We must keep expecting, be aggressive and talk to God about it, preferably every day because the devil is a thief and he wants to kill, steal and destroy the plans God has for us (see John 10:10).
It's easy to fall into a passive attitude that says, "Well, we'll just see what happens…" But we must resist becoming a "wait and see" kind of person. Instead, we need to be focused on God and determined to expect from Him, like David. In Psalm 27:13, he said, [What, what would have become of me] had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living!
Waiting on God is not a static, passive place where you're doing nothing. It's a time in your life when you aren't taking matters into your own hands, trying to do what only God can do. You are waiting physically, but you are active spiritually, seeking His face and putting your trust in Him.

2. The Benefit of a Good Attitude

You can't please anyone if you have a bad attitude. In fact, if you murmur and complain, people are probably tired of hearing it. And if we're honest about it, we're like this because we want others to feel sorry for us, which doesn't do any good.
I know this from personal experience. I used to be very negative and feel sorry for myself a lot. I would complain to my husband, Dave, but he would say, "Joyce, you just want me to feel sorry for you, and I'm not going to do it because it won't do you any good." At the time, it made me so mad, but I'm glad he responded to me this way because he was right.
Eventually I learned the truth that no matter what is going on in my life, I can choose to have a good attitude. And if you have a good attitude, God will give you favor with people and in circumstances of life. While we can't always choose our circumstances, we can choose how we react to them.

3. How to Live the Dream

So often our dreams are about us—what we want for our life or what's good for us. But Jesus, our example of how to live, gave His life not for His benefit but for ours. Shortly before He was crucified, He was in a garden praying and He said, Not My will but Yours be done (see Luke 22). He came from the glory of heaven to earth to give us life. Everything He did was for us.
To really live the dream God has for us, we need to let go of selfishness, or "die to self." What are some things we must die to? Things like our plan, our timing, our way, our reputation, getting credit for what we do, the need to be in control and the need to be right.
If you will give your life to God like Christ laid down His life for you, God will do amazing things in you and through you. It's not easy but the reward on the other side is so worth it—the fulfillment of your God-given dream!

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer -How Can I Trust God When Bad Things Happen

The truth is God loves us and He has good plans for our lives, but that doesn't mean life is always easy. We all go through difficult times and things happen that aren't fair. In fact, Jesus tells us in John 16:33, "In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration." It's so important for us to understand this so we won't be confused and lose our faith in Him when life is hard.

Thankfully, Jesus goes on to say, "But be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you]." This is amazing assurance that if we are in Christ, everything is going to work out the way it should in the end.

Forgiveness is Strenght

A Life Of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is widely accepted as a central doctrine of Christianity. God is a just, but forgiving Father, who sent Jesus to pay the price for our sins so that we could be forgiven of them. And because we are forgiven of our sins, we are cleansed and become presentable to the Father as His children.
Jesus even taught us a lot about forgiveness. In Matthew 6: 9-13, He teaches us the Lord’s Prayer, and in it he teaches us to pray for our forgiveness, as we have also forgiven those that have sinned against us. He adds in verse 14 and 15 that we should forgive so that the Father in Heaven should also forgive us. In Matthew 18:21-22, when asked how many times we should forgive, he tells us to forgive our brother seven times seventy times. In Luke 17:3, He says “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”

He didn’t just teach about forgiveness either, He practiced it and He lived it. In John 8, a woman caught in adultery was brought to Him. They expected Him to enforce the law and have her stoned, but instead He asked the one who had no sin among them to throw the first stone. And when nobody threw the first stone, He looked up at the woman and asked her if there were any still left that accused her. When she answered “no,” He said to her, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

 

In Luke 23: 34, we have an even more extreme example of how Jesus chose to forgive others. Nailed to the cross and in great pain, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Even at the moment of His greatest suffering, at the final moments of His life, He chose to forgive those who had sinned against Him.

Clearly, just as we are forgiven, we are also taught to forgive, we are commanded to practice forgiveness of others. Why, then, is it so difficult to forgive?

Some say it’s just human nature. Hurt by another person, our natural reaction is to hurt back. Whether by words or by actions, when our persons or prides are injured, we want to retaliate. Others think that forgiveness is a trait of the weak, that if you are strong you are justified in being unforgiving of others. Other times, we even justify our inability to forgive, saying that the other person would not forgive us, or that the other person was unworthy of forgiveness, or even that the other person has not asked for forgiveness to begin with.

There can be many reasons behind it, and I will admit that I myself find it difficult to forgive some things. But the plain fact is that God has commanded us to forgive others, just as we have been forgiven by Him. The truth is, we are called to live a life of forgiveness, just as Jesus lived His life that way.

If you’re struggling with forgiveness, return to the source of forgiveness and pray for a heart that can forgive. This doesn’t mean forgetting about the transgression, but it does mean letting go of feelings of resentment. Lay it at His feet, let Him take care of it, and pray for guidance and strength. Ask for forgiveness for your own unforgiving heart. And pray for a change in yourself as you also pray for the one you’re struggling to forgive.

You’ll find that God will change your heart, and that He will guide you to a life of forgiveness.

.bible-knowledge.com