First, I want to say that Facebook hates me. If I write more than a few sentences, it has no idea what to do with me other than lock up the page! Apparently, I must be meant to be a blogger. I do like being able to edit, edit and edit some more what I write.

So, a bit of a different entry today, thanks to Facebook. :) Here we go. I will try to make it more like my usual flair.

There is nothing like vacumming or outdoor exercise to clear the mind or think on something. The Lord's Word is always, always on my mind, and I find as I think on something I have read today or at another time which has ended up in my thoughts at His prompting while I am doing either, it's interesting what He might point out that I may not have seen and considered before. Yet another reason to vacuum or exercise, yes?!

So today, I am vacuuming my stairs as my children are chasing one another playing and Shaun the Sheep is on the television not being watched....wouldn't want anyone to think that my  house was actually quiet. Totally unnecessary for the Lord for a suburban stay at home mom, thankfully, to have a quiet home to think on His Word or I am not sure what I would do. I digress....

But I am thinking on Revelation 6, the fifth seal, which reads:

⁹ When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. ¹⁰ And they cried with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” ¹¹ Then a white robe was given to each of them; and it was said to them that they should rest a little while longer, until both the number of their fellow servants and their brethren, who would be killed as they were, was completed.

There is something interesting here.  I have never noticed it before, but this is what I was thinking about on the stairs and decided to write about it today. I will also say that I am not sure that I am right, but I think it's worth writing about. We will know for sure when we are in Heaven.

The Rapture of the Church happens at the beginning of chapter 4, as promised by the Lord, and all real believers who have truly repented of their sins, dead and living, who asked Him for His payment for their sins, the finished work of the cross, are kept from His wrath (Jn 14, 1 Cor 15, 1 Thess 4). This is a group of Tribulation saints (the Tribulation is seven years long (see Daniel 7) and starts with the opening of the first seal, which is the rider on the white horse, the anti-Christ) who become believers after the Church, Christ's Bride, has been taken to Heaven for our wedding. These 7 years are 360 day years, per the Bible's account of how long a year is to the Lord for us (not our current calendar), and this group of Tribulation Saints have no idea how long the brutal killing of believers will go on and ask Him that very question. That is very interesting. Why don't they know?

A little more information to consider:

We see in the next chapter a parenthetical view of the ministry of the 144,000 Israelites who preach the Gospel during part of the Tribulation and are sealed by the Lord for His work. No mention of anyone else being sealed and divinely protected from death and the other judgements---just these 144,000 men. We see a huge harvest of souls--more martyrs and not the last time we are going to see this in Revelation either--- in Heaven as we continue to read through that chapter who come out of the Tribulation that are a result of their ministry. This is not the Church and cannot be for all kinds of reasons, first of which is the promise Jesus made to keep all true believers out of that time (Rev 1-5, Jn 14, 1 Cor 15, 1 Thes 4, 2 Thes 2) and we are told to comfort one another with this knowlege AND to be always alert, watching and sober looking for Jesus to come for us. How comforted do you think the believers in Revelation 7 are through the breaking of those seals? They are already in the Tribulation and the Word there says they washed their robes in the blood of the Lord and came out of that very time. How does this even get taught? Are we reading the same book? Digressing again.....

While we know that one generation will see ALL the signs He gave us in Matt 24-25/Mk 13/Luke 21  will also see His return, there is also the parable of the fig tree, the fig tree always represents Israel in the Bible, illustrates the prophetical rebirth of Israel as a nation starting that time clock for that same generation...that was May 14, 1948. Tick tock.

So here is this group back in Rev 6 of martyrs whose blood has been shed at the Heavenly altar for their belief in the Lord Jesus  and His Word and they have no idea how long this will go on. Their understanding of His Word is limited, aparently to not much mor than a saving faith before their life is taken from them. Now, not every Christian today knows how long the Tribulation is, so I don't want to make a real believer feel any condemnation for not knowing, though I do want to encourage all to study your Bibles and beg the Holy Spirit to hide it in your heart and illuminate and teach the Word, which is a lifelong process. These martyrs don't have a clue here. Why ask the question if you know the answer? And this trial for believers is only for a very, specific time. The Bible is very, very clear about this.

The world at the time of the Rapture is going to go from the Church being here, then being taken (2 Thess 2) and no believers left on earth, the current ministry of the Holy Spirit finished. The Church is the only group of believers who is the Bride of Christ, began at Acts 2 the Feast of Weeks/Shavuot/Pentacost and will stop at the Rapture (Romans 11, as well) when the Lord is going to turn His eyes back on Israel, pour out His wrath on an unbelieving world, and it's going to be unlike any time in history (see Revelation). Satan and his fallen buddies all know exactly Who Jesus is and they have far better knowlege of the Scriptures than we d0, and neither of those things makes them saved from eternal destruction. There are many within the Church who are unsaved today. The Restrainer, Who is the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell inside the heart of every real believer at the moment of belief, will be taken out of the way (2 Thess2).

How did this particular group we are shown here come to faith in Jesus? There are some Bible teachers who teach that if one has rejected the Gospel before the Rapture, they will be deluded afterwards without a choice. There are definitely two times the Bible mentions when someone can no longer accept Christ: one is after death. The whole teaching of purgatory completely flies in the face of the entire volume of Scripture, and I pray any Catholic who reads this might grab a Bible, do some studying on your own and check out places like Luke 16, just as a for instance. The second is found in Revelation 13 when someone knowingly takes the mark of the Beast (the anti-Christ) and worships his image. Other than that, the Lord is the discerner of hearts, and while someone will end up with a hard heart walking in continual sin away from the Lord, only the Lord knows what it will take for that person to come to a saving faith, if they are going to. We are never told to stop praying for those we witness to who reject the Lord or to stop sharing with them. I do not personally subscribe to that train of thought that they are doomed to delusion, and I am not sure that I see Biblical evidence that is what 2 Thessalonians 2 is teaching. I also know the Lord remains unchangingly merciful and gracious because that is His character, and that it is we who have hard, sinful hearts. I read through Revelation and see My God of Grace and Mercy on every page always wanting all men to repent and come to a saving knowlege of His Son, the Only One Who can save!

So here is the reason I sat down to write and felt I had to: it may be that those martyrs we see in Revelation 6 at the breaking of the fifth seal are those who have come to a saving knowlege of Jesus because of sharing the Gospel right now by those believers who are faithful to share it today. The prophet Amos records:

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“That I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread,
Nor a thirst for water,
But of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹² They shall wander from sea to sea,
And from north to east;
They shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
But shall not find it.     Amos 8:11-12


Sharing the Gospel with the lost is for every believer--it's called the Great Commission. It's awesome to help storm victims, feed the poor, clothe the needy, but that is not the Gospel! The Gospel is the sharing with words the Good News of Who Jesus according to the Holy Bible and what He did on the cross to pay for sins so that some will believe and be saved from eternal separation and punishment in hell. We also cannot earn salvation. Ephesians 2:8-10, just as one example, is so clear about this very thing. Apart from works, free from the Lord's grace, no boasting flesh--just the Lord being glorified. The end. If you are taught salvation by any other way, the Bible says that is false teaching, the doctrine of demons. If that is what you have been taught, might you cling to the Everlasting Word or to a body that is leading you to eternal hell? Wow, Nicole, that is a very serious thing to say, offensive to some even. Yep, it is, but that is what the Bible says. The Lord says He places His Word above His own Name (Ps 138:2). Are you going to believe the Lord (go look it up!) and place your faith in Him or trust a bunch of men who are teaching contrary to His Word? His Word is the measuring stick for doctrine, not the other way around. And the Bible is very confrontational to false teaching and beliefs. I say that in love, understanding that the Lord's heart is for none to perish but all men to be saved. Most reject Him. What say you?

Take an imaginary journey with me for a minute and consider a Sunday morning if the Rapture took place then........do we really believe that everyone around us in our fellowships is saved? Who might be left when we who are saved go home to be with the Lord? Who might we have shared with and prayed for many times who is finally convicted of their sins and who Jesus is who ends up under that altar? How many pastors, worship leaders, Sunday school teachers, generous givers will be left in those seats? How many will know what happened? This group of Trib Saints group seems to only have enough knowlege to be saved from their sins and not much else. This is something to really think on and consider today as believers. We are called to be seed planters and waterers. God gives the growth. The harvest belongs to Him, not to us. Are we going to be faithful to do His work? Many reject the teaching of the Rapture, but the Bible is very clear about it in many places and with my types as well of it in the Old Testament, and you will probably be told you are crazy to believe it. Just wanted to warn you. Blessed are you who suffer for rightousness in Jesus, my friend. It's a narrow and difficult path that few find but praise be to Him who secures our footing on the Rock of our salvation. Take heart and be of good cheer and courage! The cross is the power of God to those who are saved and foolishness to those who are perishing, Paul writes to the Corinthians. Speak boldly of your faith in Jesus and let His Spirit work on conviction of sin and righteousness!

The Bible says that all in our churches are not saved in more than one place, but I would point right to Revelation 2 and 3 to those letters and what Jesus has to say about this very thing AND the time of the Tribulation specifically right now. Our fellowships are a place where we should share the Gospel everytime we meet. Unbelievers are there, but the lost are mainly out in the world and we are called disciples....that means "sent out ones" "set apart ones". We are not going to be popular. We are going to be hated and persecuted by the world and they are not going to give us any more of a warm reception than Jesus received---He promised this would be so! We are set apart and sent out to share the Good News of Jesus Christ so that some might be saved--our lives don't have meaning or value apart from Jesus and eternal things. This life, this world, they are passing away and set for judgement, and that time is very near. If those signs of the Tribution are here, how much closer are we to the Rapture, a signless event? Are you ready to share your testimony of Who Jesus is and What He did with someone gently at any moment like Peter exhorts us to? Some might be saved now. Some might be saved later.

I believe we are very close to the time of the Tribulation. The signs are not only all appearing, they are also accelerating and becoming more intense. You won't understand them without your Bible, and you won't understand your Bible unless you are filled with the Holy Spirit and in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. If you have not done the last, you will have a great deal of trouble with the other, and the Church is so filled with false doctrine now, as prophesied throughout the New Testament, that it's become very difficult to hear the Bible taught on a Sunday, much less taught correctly. The Lord defines all symbols used---no guessing required or allowed---and He means what He says. His Word is not allegorical, it's literal and plain, and pay special attention to pronouns! I cannot tell you how many times I have ended up confused because I forgot I was an "us, we, you" and not a "them or those". And we grow up in Christ. We don't come in as grown ups, but we can be malnourished. We can be immature. Pray for wisdom--He says He wants to give it--and cling to Him, wanting only His Truth. There are plenty of things to learn out there, but only one Truth, Jesus, and then you are going to have to check His Word to be sure it's the same Jesus!

So, that's it for me today on this beautiful and hot day in Houston, loving Jesus and His Word and praying for the lost and for those of us who belong to the King of Kings to be praying people and evangelising people and to depart not only from iniquity but from false teachings as well and cling to the Only One Who can save.

Blessings in Christ, Nicole

Identity Crisis Averted

The Lord woke me up this morning with some verses and something on my heart for my son, but really it's for anyone, so I am writing. I had the misadventure of going with my husband yesterday to get his haircut and out of morbid curiosity pulled a fashion magazine and read it, which is really funny all by itself. I am thinking if I went to an ivy league college, that might be my best career choice (writing for one). Thank the Lord for His strange plans for my life. I know that I have people in my life that look at me like my potential has been stumped at home raising my children, and for a long time, I believe that I went through an identity crisis that I attempted to solve through the means most of the world does---if I get married, I belong to someone. If I have children, I have someone to love and take care of. If I have a career, I can do something with that brain of mine, etc.

Am I down on any of these things? Oh, not at all, but the Lord says that He has plans and ways that are not like ours, and like my pastor talking about the mess of the back of a tapestry, there is a day when the Lord's plans look like a beautiful piece of artwork, His poema. That's my life. That's your life, if you belong to Jesus and give it to Him. We only get to see the mess most of the time and He gets to see the artwork He is creating, but every once in awhile, He might turn it around to give us a glimpse that that mess was His handiwork and the other side of it is incredibly beautiful because He is doing it!

How do you avert that identity crisis? Well, I am watching our oldest go through it, and I believe that even as off track as he has been, it only takes the Lord a moment to solve this for us if we will humble ourselves before Him and ask Him to solve it. We just have to want the Lord to show us and be led by Him rather than attempting to blaze our own trail and do things our own way. We have an identity crisis for that reason to begin with. The fall of man in the Garden of Eden was created from a departure from the Lord, His plans and ways and man thinking the Lord was holding out the good stuff. We are truly kidding ourselves when we think that doing it our way, smacking with such pride, coated over with indignation and pain from our past hurts and mistakes, is brave and makes so much sense and then we have the unmitigated gall of seeking encouragement from others who will support our delusions rather than seeking the Lord and those who know Him who will speak His truth into our lives and saylet us know own way looks like a tornado made touch down everywhere we have walked.

Oh, harsh, I know, but really, is that not the truth? There are some who pull this off and it looks prettier on the surface or from the fence they have built that only allows you to get so close, but underneath, not so, kind of like our current home. It was 9 years old when we bought it and figured we had a good base and would update and do some things to it to personalize it as we lived in it. Well, no matter how those walls looked, once you got the speed square out or took off a switchplate or outlet cover to put something prettier on, all you would end up seeing is the nothing was square and that the part was the cheapest one made in China not hooked up correctly and that we were just lucky we hadn't had a fire....and it happened over and over again. Same thing with those who want to do that. Some might just decide not to pull off anymore switchplates when they know they are just going to find a new mess. Trouble with that is that it's a bad plan if you want to keep your house from catching on fire at some point. We need not be fooled thinking that others aren't as much of a mess as us. Not so. It's those who trust in Jesus with their lives who have their walls put into square, even if they have to be ripped down, who are no longer in danger of fire because they were totally rewired and given brand new parts put in correctly!

It's the identity crisis that leads us either into the arms of Jesus and ends it with the beginning of a new life in Him or straight to hell with sincere intensions to stay ignorant and distracted or to fool ourselves into thinking we are making a good show of it. Those who know Jesus, as flawed as they will always be as humans, they know the truth and will continue speaking it into the life of the one who is still lost. Better for the storms in life to be circumstantial and we held steady through it, than the storm being inside us and we are tossed every which way and lucky if we survive. If you are in the world without the Lord, you are "lucky" to survive. If you have the Lord, you don't even have to spend a moment worrying, about anything!

So there was a passage in the Bible that I planned to get to with all this, and I was thinking about our oldest because he is almost done with the first part of discipleship and getting ready to enter very much unwillingly into the next part where there is much more interaction with the world and feet on the Word of God being fed into him these last weeks to see if he cannot get beyond an identity crisis and wondering what is next . Jesus said in Luke 8:22-25:

" ²² Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.” And they launched out. ²³ But as they sailed He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy. ²⁴ And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!”
Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. ²⁵ But He said to them, “Where is your faith?”
And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”

When you get into the boat with Jesus, you are going to make it. He didn't say that trouble wasn't going to be part of the crossing, but He said, "Let us cross over to the other side of the lake." When you get into the boat with Jesus, you are going to make it. It won't be easy, and if you read your Bible, you find out that He tells us that too many times! I don't know, y'all (that is whoever reads this), but you want to go it alone through the storms that life brings that only the One who controls them knows about and see how it turns out or would you rather get into His boat and let Him rebuke the wind and the raging of the water for you and know that what He commands must come to pass down to the last detail? Faith is not some arbitrary, intangible thing, as some say when they tell you, "Just have faith." Oh, baloney! That is not how that works or what that means. Stop ripping the Words of the Living God out of context and misapplying them by voiding Him out of His Own Words!

My faith is in Jesus. It's not random and being led and cared for by the Lord involves Him imputing His strength to me. I have to admit that whatever it is that I have, it's not strength at all when I compare it to His and what He has is so much better and more effective. What I have is a lack and need that He alone can fill. When I sit down in a chair, I know it will support me and I don't spend my time worrying about it collapsing underneath me. That is my relationship with Jesus as well. I know He is not going to collapse underneath my weight. He is able to hold me in His hands. And He is more than able to hold our struggling son as well and anyone else too and forever solve the question of who each of us is: His! And then the next quandry as well of what to do about all my needs and plans for my life. He will fill them and He has plans for us already (Ep 2:10).

My Jesus spoke His Word in my heart this morning as I slept and I woke up with Matthew 6 in my heart:

²⁵ “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

²⁸ “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; ²⁹ and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

³¹ “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

Verse 33 is the answer to the human condition of identity. Seek the kingdom of God first and His righteousness and all the other things that we need will be taken care of---note, not by us, but by the Lord Himself! He does the "added unto you" part.

Jesus, as John accounts, prayed for those who would become His;

"⁹ I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. ¹⁰ And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. ¹¹ Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me,^[b] that they may be one as We are. ¹² While I was with them in the world,^[c] I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept;^[d] and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. ¹⁸ As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth."  Jn 17:9-19

I love this. Jesus prayed for me and for all those who are going to answer His call to come to Him for rest. Sanctify means to be set apart as holy or for a special purpose. The world has one way, and Jesus has one that is not only different, but that the world will never receive and is emnity to it, yet He prayed not that we would be taken out of it but keep us from Satan and set apart for the special purpose of God in Christ, which is to be a light set high up on a hill for Him making Him known, His holy name, not our own, His purposes which is salvation of souls from perishing, not our own which are selfish and glorify ourselves. The more you get to know Jesus, the more you realize how ridiculous the world is and how ridiculous you are when you follow after it. The way of the world is the broadway leading to hell, not to Heaven, and going the opposite direction of the Creator of all. The world isn't going to tell you that, by the way. They are apparently going to tell you to do it your way, that you can buy a pair of shoes that will make you think you can conquer the world (yes, that magazine actually wrote that!) or that couples that take Lexapro stay together (yes, there was an entire article espousing this as truth). No wonder our nation and our world are crumbling around us! Apparently, most are seeking this advice out and then following it to the letter!

Sigh. Really, this seems good and makes sense to millions? What can I say but tell you that surely you have a Creator who has something better for you than magical pumps and an antidepressant!

I will end with this: the Lord is amazing and when I finally humbled myself as I read His Word and understood that what was missing in my life was a contrite heart that would bow down only before the One who made me and repent (which means that I agree with Him and turn to Him and give Him control of things by His Spirit and follow His holy Words by the power of His Spirit) of my sins and receive the forgiveness He wants to give the one who asks, I will receive that and so much more, including an identity that makes me accepted in the Beloved as one of His sheep who dwells with Him eternally fed with the Bread of Life and given Living Water than eternally quenches my soul.

23 The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
² He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³ He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell^[a] in the house of the Lord
Forever.

Amen!