Eternity | Paul the Poke

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Get Ready For Christ’s Return… Joshua of Ghana

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Joshua Ghana with tags clouds, Eternity, Ghana, God, Heaven, imminent, Jesus Christ, judgment, Rapture, Resurrection, Second Coming on September 7, 2022 by paulthepoke

TEXT: LUKE 12:32-48

Key verse: “And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately” (Luke 12:36).

Each time a conversation gets to the direction of the return of Jesus Christ, many people are either dismissive, amused or unconcerned. This is because they think it is unlikely or if it will happen at all, that it would be in the distant future. In the process, they miss the essential lesson of ensuring that the Lord’s coming does not meet them unprepared.

Jesus Christ assures His disciples that almighty God has reserved a place in heaven for them. Believers should therefore, not misplace their priorities but jettison anything, including love of money, that could hinder their love, obedience and service to the Lord. They must allow their lives to shine brightly, while living in constant expectation of the imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ so that when He comes, they would be ready. In fact, He would come when most people are not expecting Him.

Great blessings await those He will meet ready at His return. But those who fail to prepare for His coming and are consumed by the rat race, revelry and oppressive activities of the world, would suffer eternal separation from Him. Those that are ignorant of His advent will also face punishment; while those that knew but refused to get themselves ready, will get a more severe punishment.

This is a timely warning, especially in our present age when all talk about the return of Jesus Christ seem like fable to many. To be ready, you must not condone even the slightest sin in your life but shun all evil distractions of the world. You must diligently follow the Lord, faithfully engage in the service of winning and preparing souls for heaven and growing daily into the nature and stature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: How ready are you to meet the Lord?

The Bible IN ONE YEAR: JUDGES 18 – 21

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Ethnicity Into Eternity… Mickey Sutliff

Posted in #PaulthePoke, Culture, Mickey Sutliff with tags Acts 17, Ephesians 2, Eternity, ethnos, God, Jesus Christ, Lord, nations, Revelation 21, Revelation 5, Revelation 7 on December 28, 2020 by paulthepoke

Acts 17:26 …and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation…

God is the one who determines or sets the boundaries and times for the nations, which ‘He created from one man’ (Acts 17:26).

Acts 17:27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

And He is at work in culture, nations and ethnicities ‘that they should seek Him and find Him’ (Acts 17:27).

It was my experience and became a personal value to see the intentionality and unique ways the LORD works in culture & ethnicities (nations) to reveal and draw men to Himself. As I walked life & worshipped with my African American brothers and sisters, I saw our LORD and Savior in ways that were new, broader and more glorious. I saw Him from new facets of perspective and how He meets us in our life circumstance (which flow from our upbringing, culturally, socioeconomically, etc.) that I could not see from my own limited experiences and circumstance or even the way in which my own cultural background ‘fashioned’ Him.

Revelation 21:24-26 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it…

Based, not only on Revelation 5:9 & 7:9 but also Revelation 21:24-26, the ‘nations’ are still identifiable and noteworthy in the ‘new man’ (Ephesians 2:15-22) that will move into Eternity with our LORD.

Ephesians 2:15-22 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

I believe this is significant, even though we are unified into one new identity in our Lord Jesus. We will also still retain our identifiable ‘ethnicity’ to be an eternal glory for the LORD to His redemptive purpose and the unconditional reach of His love. These ‘secondary identities’ of ethnicity become the ‘song of the Redeemed’ to the Lamb of God in Revelation 5:9 “…for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”

Consider, God raises His redeemed to be imperishable, immortal, spiritual, heavenly, etc. (as described in 1 Corinthians 15:42-57), AND YET chooses to retain the ethnicities of each forever and ever…. If it is important to the Father to maintain these distinctives as a glory to Son in eternity, it should be one that I need to embrace and seek to see in the Church this side of Eternity. Understanding our ‘secondary’ ethnic identities as an eternal value and priority of the LORD with respect to expressing the redemptive work of Christ, should lead us to value AND pursue diversity within the Body, desiring to see our local bodies reflect the eternal glory scripture has revealed to us.

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Resurrection…Next Stop, Lake of Fire

Posted in Prophecy with tags Daniel 12, Eternity, hell, Jesus, lake of fire, Millennium, Psalm 53, Resurrection, Revelation, satan on May 25, 2014 by paulthepoke

One way or another, we are all eternal. Some of us are going to Heaven and some of us are going to Hell. The prophet Daniel makes this pretty clear. Daniel 12:2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

There are two groups of people here. Previous posts focused on the positive. This will be about the negative. Look at the adjectives that describe Hell, disgrace and everlasting contempt. How else are those words translated in the original Hebrew?

In the Hebrew, the word for disgrace is “cherpah”. It could also mean: reproach, scorn, or taunt.

In the Hebrew, the word for everlasting is “`owlam”. It could also mean: long duration, antiquity, futurity, for ever, ever, everlasting, evermore, perpetual, old, ancient, ancient time, long time, always, continuous existence, indefinite or unending future, eternity.

In the Hebrew, the word for contempt is “d@ra’own”. It could also mean:aversion, abhorrence. Definitions provided by Strong’s Concordance.

Hell is a repulsive taunt and it never stops.

The resurrection of the dead takes place after the 1,000 year reign of Christ. Satan has been released and organizes an uprising that gets torched. All the dead who have not been resurrected to life are brought before the Great White Throne in Revelation 20:11-15.

This is something for the “moralist” to consider. For the critic who says, “Man is ultimately good.” Or, “We need to consider all of the good things they have done.” If a person has rejected Jesus’ cross work and payment for sin, man will be judged according to his or her deeds.

Be careful what you wish for, it is stated twice that man will be judged according to his or her deeds. Revelation 20:12b…and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

Revelation 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.

The eternal destination for those not found in the Book of Life is the Lake of Fire. Scripture describes this as an actual physical place. It is noted in Revelation 19 and 20.

Jesus teaches about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible.

To the critic, the stakes are high, ante up. “Something” is eventually right and “something” is eventually wrong.

Psalm 53:1-3 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God,” they are corrupt, and have committed abominable injustice; there is no one who does good. God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is anyone who understands, who seeks after God. Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.