In my last post, we talked about the belief biases that many of the Jewish religious sects had and how those caused them to miss recognizing Jesus as the Messiah to which Scripture pointed. Also, their disunity in their beliefs caused them to double down on their biases which caused them to become blinded toward what God was doing in their very midst. Is that true today as well?

I would advocate that this is true to a large extent. Some of this disunity was addressed in a previous post (Rapture-Receiving of the Bride). We have so many different denominations today and it seems there is much more controversy between many of these denominations than between Christian and non-Christian circles. What has this disunity led to? I think almost the same as it led to almost two thousand years ago. Back then they could not unite on what to expect from a coming Messiah and thereby missed him completely when he was right in their midst. Today, we have so much disunity about what to expect next from God that I’m afraid many of us may miss what God is going to do in our midst as well. There is so much dispute today about whether the next event will be a great revival or Christ returning for his bride. Rather than searching scripture to see the argument of each side, each side just buckles down on their emphatic belief that the other side is wrong.

Let’s not do that. Christ fulfilled Scripture at his first coming, but all sides missed it. God did not “perform” as they expected. Rather than searching the scriptures to see if any of it could be true, they totally rejected everything Jesus said. It seems the “prophetic” side of Christendom believes that God is going to flood the Earth with his Spirit which will lead to one of the greatest revivals of all time. The “conservative” side of Christendom says that the next event is the Rapture and that is the only hope Christians have before the world totally collapses.

Both sides have Scripture to back up their beliefs. Well, the Pharisees and Sadducees had scripture to back up their beliefs about the Messiah as well. Yet, that did not work out well for them. Therefore, we should at least be cautious about being adamant in our stance of what God will do next.

Now, I’m certainly not advocating that we ignore what Scripture says about what he will do next. Yet, shouldn’t the fact that Christians are not in unison indicate that something is amiss? If we are searching for truth, the Bible, which is the true source of all truth, can’t provide two events as the answer to the truth we are looking for. Who’s right, then?

Maybe we’re confusing some scripture of one event as part of that of another event. I mean, the Pharisees seemed to have done that. They were looking for Jesus, if he was the Messiah, to fulfill all the Messianic prophecies. They didn’t realize he was going to fulfill part then and part later. That scenario never occurred to them. Are we perhaps not doing the same? I refer you to an earlier blog about part of this (An M-Theory to End-Time Prophecy). God always reveals what he is going to do in Scripture, but the way he fulfills it is often very different than we expect. Let’s be ready for the unexpected and thereby drop our shields and flaming arrows against our fellow Christians. Now, of course, if a teaching is not Biblical, then it should be rejected. But can’t we look at all Scripture and see if perhaps God is going to do something unexpected? After all, that’s what Jesus did, didn’t he? So he already has that modus operandi. At the very least, why not prepare for either event to come? Either one would be a glorious event to be a part of. Wouldn’t it?

Now, there are some strange verses that don’t exactly fit with a coming Rapture. We have tried to make those refer to his Millennial reign, but if we look at them closely, we find they don’t exactly fit into that future time. I talked about this in a previous post (Kingdom Age). My point here is that all denominations have likely missed the mark to some degree. Perhaps those denominations with a Pentecostal bent have sort of idolized the experiences the Holy Spirit brings and made them greater than the work Christ himself did for us. That is a problem. And perhaps the more conservative denominations have gone too far the other way to ensure they do not make that mistake that they don’t allow the Holy Spirit to work as mightily as he could otherwise. That is also a problem.

Let’s pray that God will provide unity to his Church. When Paul was talking about unity and wanting to present a virgin bride to Christ, i.e., the Church, he was not just talking about one physical church body. He was referring to the universal Church. He wanted all Christians to be in unity. While, as humans, unity about everything may not be realistic, but we should become united around Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his death on the cross for our sins, and his resurrection which gives us hope of our future resurrection. Then, can’t we pray for revival and simultaneously prepare ourselves for his return? If he does send his Spirit again for a grand revival, then we’ll be prepared for him to use us for such an event. If he instead returns for his bride, then he can retrieve a bride who is more united in him, being more pure and more ready to be received by him.

We all need more of God, a balance with each member of his Trinity. We need to recognize that God, the Almighty, oversees all. Even if we think we know what he is going to do, we should allow him to implement his actions in whatever way he chooses, and not think we know how he is going to act. But we should be ready to respond with him in whatever way he acts. We need to recognize that Jesus Christ is the one we should focus on because it is his actions that have saved us and made us equipped to be with him forever. Our role now is to help others recognize this important feat he has done on their behalf. We need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is the one who provides the power we need to implement all that Christ has for us to do. Far too few of us allow him to work though us without us impeding him.

We know that something wonderful is just around the corner. Let’s not argue about what that is, but let’s get ready for God to do whatever he desires to do and be sure that we are ready to be used by him. The apostles never knew what Jesus was going to do, even when he told them, but they went along with him regardless of what they thought about his actions as they knew they could trust him because he was their Messiah. Let’s do the same.

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