My Online Faith Journal

  One day Jesus shared a parable with his disciples about forgiveness.  It is recorded in Matthew 18:21-35.  In it, the king wishes to settle accounts with his slaves.  So, he calls before him one who owes him ten thousand talents (a debt that would be over 10 million dollars today) and tells him to repay.  When he says that he cannot the king orders him to be sold along with all that he has and repayment to be made.  The man begs for his life and the life of his family and the king graciously forgives him and sets him free.     But, unfortunately the slave learns nothing from this and goes out and find a man who owes him one hundred denari (about 3.5 months worth of wages) and starts to choke him saying "Pay back what you owe" Matt 18:28.  The other slave pleads for him to give him more time, but the slave has no compassion on him and throws him into prison.  HIs fellow slaves see what has happened and report it to the king.     When the king hears this he is angered and say

      I was talking one day to someone about how God uses people that others have given up on.  After I stopped and really thought about it, that includes many of the so called "heros" of the Old Testament and New.  There is a section of scripture where it says, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and god has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullfiy the things that are, that no man should boast before God."  1 Corinthians 1:26-29, NASV        And when you do a survey of scripture you see that this is the truth.  Gideon for example describes hmself in Judges 6:15 as being from the least family in Manasseh and the youngest of his father's household.  And the time

     I was listening to a sermon earlier today from Greg Laurie (which I will put a link to at the bottom of this post) and he was talking about the afterlife.  There are many different thoughts about how things will end in the end times including views of the tribulation and rapture and 1,000 year reign of Christ.  There are also many disagreements about how things will happen.  I thought I would write about five things (with supporting scripture which I encourage you to examine) that we can say for certain about the end times leading up to Jesus return. 1. The end will come about suddenly.  (Matthew 24:27; 1 Thess 4:16).  There is no question that when Jesus does return that it will be in a twinkling of an eye or very, very suddenly.  Before we know it things are going to change.  There will not be time to have a prayer meeting and prepare.  One moment things will be normal and the next the Lord will descend with a shout.  God is being patient right now giving people a chance to repe