August 1, 2017

Greetings My Friend,

Right now Pastor Joe is teaching us about the rapture of the church. He is showing us in the Word of God why he believes the "church" will be taken up to heaven before the tribulation will come. As he shows us the passages of Scripture in Revelation, I can see how he has come to his decision. Through the years I have heard many different beliefs as Scriptural. When pressed further like when I have a passage that I am looking at and ask a direct question I am told it is how you interpret the Bible. Lately I find when I ask God to teach me what a passage is saying, I tend to find there is no other way to interpret the Bible. I can read the same passage and learn another lesson, but I can not interpret what I want to believe into the passage. For instance I have been told that the devil is not real if you do not want to believe in him. My problem with this thinking is Jesus talks about hell more than he does heaven so interpreting the devil out of the Bible does not mean he in not real. More recently all we ever hear is that God is a loving God and He is but He will bring wrath upon us if we choose to not repent and turn from our evil ways. Right now I see that our country is about due for a major spanking if we do not turn back to inviting God back into our land. God calls certain things immoral and He even states He hates them and if we keep believing He loves the worst things he finds unacceptable we are in for a major wake up call. God wants All people to choose Him and His ways, not reinvent His ways to suite what we believe is right and just. Even though God finds adultery, homosexuality an abomination, God wants us to repent which means He will give us a chance to accept His ways and then if we don't He will turn us over to our abominations. God wants me to be respectful of people, to be like Jesus is to believe He is God's Son and if these people refuse to turn from their ways well.....their eternity will not be pleasant at all. We have the choice to believe God, follow His ways and in turn receive His loving kindness and patience or to walk away from Him, He leaves the choice up to us. God does not compromise His ways at all. We can learn what God truly likes and how to be forgiven as we read the Bible. As the revival taught it is Jesus life, death and resurrection. Nothing less, nothing more. I also learned again from the revival that once we accept Jesus a relationship with Him will begin and what you used to be and do will no longer have a hold on you. It may take time but change will take place in your heart. If you are the same as the day you said the sinner's prayer then, more than likely you were caught up in a moment of excitement. Once you accept Jesus you begin to change and continue to change the longer you walk in faith, it is building a personal relationship with Jesus. The Holy Spirit comes to reside in you upon your confession of faith and He will begin to convict your heart. You learn to hear His voice as you read Scripture and pray. I have to agree with what was being taught at the revival, it may be time to make sure the saved are truly saved in the heart, not just with their lips. Once we begin healing in the church, I believe we can go forth bringing the true Gospel message of love and repentance. The Holy Spirit laid this saying on my heart, " Save souls, not bodies to fill the pews." May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you. Love Janet