9-23-21 Again, He Didn’t Come; Don’t Be Discouraged

Again, He Didn’t Come; Don’t Be Discouraged - By Tom Tillman - https://www.raptureready.com/2021/09/14/again-he-didnt-come-dont-be-discouraged-by-tom-tillman/ Ok, so He didn’t come this ‘Trumpets.’ Never be discouraged! I wrote this during the final hour of the Feast of Trumpets 2021. Once more, many have been disappointed and disillusioned because Jesus Christ didn’t come for us during this year’s Feast of Trumpets… just as they’ve been disappointed after every ‘Blood Moon’ and after every other unusual occurrence in the Heavens or on earth. We knew He could have come; nothing in Bible prophecy needs to be fulfilled before the Rapture; and yet, in one sense, I didn’t expect Him to come because I did expect Him to come. “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44). But weren’t we right to earnestly look for and expect Him? Just two verses before, Jesus said, “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). In Luke 12:35-40, Jesus said, “Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” We are to live in a constant state of readiness and expectation while, at the same time, being patient and longsuffering, not allowing ourselves to become discouraged when every new day dawns without His having come for us the night before, yet always waking with this thought: ‘This really could be the day!’ Some disbelieve and mock us as we look for and expect Him daily, but even that, in and of itself, is further proof that it could be today. “…knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation” ‘(2 Peter 3:3). 2 Peter 3:9 tells us one of the main reasons the Lord Jesus Christ has not yet come: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” He is waiting until the moment He reveals and calls to Himself the very last person His Father chose and elected to be His Son’s Bride, chosen from before the foundation of the world: “…just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6). And that brings us to our main point: Why else does He delay His coming? This is something which should really thrill us beyond measure! During these many years of delay, God has given us something to hope for and to labor toward, even beyond His glorious return for us; the thing which pertains to each of us, personally: Paul wrote: “But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-3). Paul tells us that it is beyond even our imagination the glorious eternal rewards Jesus Christ has planned to pour out upon those who’ve faithfully walked with Him in fellowship and obedience. Jesus said, “…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:20). Our treasure should be in Heaven where we are, now, building the totality of our treasure. Sadly, many have chosen to store up their treasures here on earth, and they will eventually all be for naught, left behind, at the Rapture, to be eaten and destroyed by moth, rust, and decay, all of which will cry out against them when they stand before the Lord Jesus Christ at the time to receive our Eternal Rewards. Many of us have had to endure painful things while waiting for Him; I’m sorry we’ve had to go through so much for so long, but here is truth: in all we’ve been through, in all we’ve suffered, the Lord Jesus Christ reached down and specifically took hold of us… He chose us from before the foundation of the world… He chose us because His plan has always been to glorify Himself in us and through us. Every time we think right, choose right, say right, or do right, He is glorified in front of all angels, elect and fallen, and all humans, elect and fallen. Every time we “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which we’ve been called” (Eph 4:1), “walking in a manner worthy of the Lord” (Col 1:10), we gain unimaginable eternal rewards that will never be taken away. Each and every reward is far beyond anything we could ever imagine. I am able to imagine exceptionally huge indeed! But He is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask, think or imagine!” (Eph 3:20). Every time we set our hearts to imagine as tremendously, enormously great as we can, and then remind ourselves that He is able to do even exceedingly abundantly above even that, we are glorifying Him by declaring that He is sufficiently mighty and even Almightier still! You may think… ‘All I care about is getting there and being with Him.’ He gave us the book of Hosea to explain a little of how He loves us… of His loyal, steadfast love for us no matter what! When we self-righteously say something like, ‘Well, I just want to make it to Heaven… that’s all I’m shootin’ for… that’ll be enough’ – that kind of thinking dishonors and ‘disglorifies’ Him. What we don’t realize is that it will be His joy to be the One to pour out those rewards on us forever; as He glorifies us, He will be glorified in and through us. He is so looking forward to having us to Himself and being able to glorify us… yes… glorify us! We think all the glory belongs to Him, and that is so; but the truth is, His plan is to glorify us! At the moment of the Rapture, we will be clothed in an unbelievably glorified eternal body just like His own, a body that will finally be capable of experiencing and enjoying all that God has imagined and planned for us throughout Eternity. His body shines with glory, as seen in Rev. 1 and on the Mount of Transfiguration, and His plan is that we will also shine with the glory that He bestows upon us because He loves us and because He will be glorified in His glorification of us. “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). All our past hurt and abuse, all our past sin and failure… those are the things which the enemy hoped would be for our’s and God’s dishonor; but, in fact, God will be further glorified in all of those things when it is revealed that He was able to take such seemingly dishonorable vessels and recreate them into vessels for His Glory. Through all our pain and failure, His love for us is such that He set in motion the events that would allow us to gain untold, unimaginable, unbelievable rewards that He will be so pleased to shower upon us over and over forever. Not only does it not matter to Him all the ‘things’ we’ve done – rather, all of those things that were shameful of which we’ve repented – He has used as the things which, added together, make up our part of His glorious Bride in whom He has been pleased to glorify Himself all these years. Jesus said, “The one who is forgiven much, loves much” (Luke 7:47). Every time an evil spirit looks at us, they know, every one of them knows that we are lost to them, that we were ones whom Jesus Christ chose to forgive much, to die for. And every time they realize their loss, Jesus Christ is glorified in us. The Rapture is coming soon, very soon, and all of this will be finished; but our eternity, our forever, will have only just begun. We are in forever now! Every decision we make, every action we take affects forever… now! We are princes and princesses of the King. We are going through our time of training in order to fully and ably enter into the fabulous ministry He has planned for us as we rule and reign with Him – first, for one thousand years, and then forever. Continue to walk in a manner worthy of your calling. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things of the earth. Wait for Him expectantly every day. One moment soon, He will call us up to Himself… maybe even today! Tom Tillman heartsoflove.org