Do you ever worry...

Godislove94 said:

Do you ever worry that you won't be good enough to be raptured? And if you do, do you find yourself so worn out from trying to be a good Christian for so long that the thought of being "on fire" for God stresses and wears you out, and then you end up not caring? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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What distinguishes a "good" Christian from a "bad" Christian? There is no such thing as a "bad" Christian because all Christians are IN CHRIST. That means in God's eyes they are fully righteous and justified.

This is not a rapture issue, this is a justification by faith alone issue.

Godislove94 said:

Do you ever worry that you won't be good enough to be raptured? And if you do, do you find yourself so worn out from trying to be a good Christian for so long that the thought of being "on fire" for God stresses and wears you out, and then you end up not caring? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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If my "rapture" or salvation were dependent upon my goodness, then I would be very worried indeed. Thank God it isn't.

Do you ever worry...

Godislove94 said:

Do you ever worry that you won't be good enough to be raptured? And if you do, do you find yourself so worn out from trying to be a good Christian for so long that the thought of being "on fire" for God stresses and wears you out, and then you end up not caring? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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Bless yer heart, yes. YET, God CONTINUES to minister to us and He is in the process of chasing those fears away. TRUST Him that He CAN and He WILL. His peace and stillness and joy are OURS. TRUST that He will COMPLETE what He began in you, and give ALL of your burdens and worries and uncertainties to HIM, dear heart. He LOVES you and He DELIGHTS in you, precious sister in Christ and beloved daughter of the Most High God. May His joy and His peace and His rest be yours. (((hug)))

Indeed,as my Brothers have said.

We do not gain nor maintain our salvation by works.

Salvation is by Grace through Faith alone.

If you wander wether or not you'll be good enough by the Rapture even as a Believer. Yes,you should be worried. Very VERY worried. Because you will never be good enough on your own merits.

You can be given a free pass through Christ though. (Not to sin,but to be forgiven.)

Here is a passage that speaks for itself:



"So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.'Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because 'the righteous will live by faith.'"
-Galations 3:9-11

God be with you!
-Your Brother In Christ

Since I am not convinced of the whole "rapture" theology it doesn't bother me. I do my best and pray it all works out in the end.

Godislove94 said:

Do you ever worry that you won't be good enough to be raptured? And if you do, do you find yourself so worn out from trying to be a good Christian for so long that the thought of being "on fire" for God stresses and wears you out, and then you end up not caring? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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I'm not sure what "not being good enough" means. I guess it could be about sin, or about not bearing much fruit, or faith easily shaken...

Paul talked about baptism having an effect on our conscience towards God, by which we draw near to him with a true heart. It's by the blood of Jesus which cleanses us from sin. A guilty conscience is the first thing dealt with when we get saved and worries about sin diminish.

Peace with God is the first thing we learn, and the fears and doubts which follow is a fight over the truth. It actually works to purge the conscience towards God, through faith in the blood of Jesus.

As for taking up your cross to follow Jesus, that's done in God's strength. He causes his word to prosper in you, he alone gives the increase...being good enough is to his praise.

No need to fear with a Savior like Jesus.

Godislove94 said:

Do you ever worry that you won't be good enough to be raptured?

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Jesus says, "be ready", in Matthew 24:44. So, worrying about it is not being ready. I understand we need to be, now, the way we will need to be at the time of Rapture, so we are "ready". And be relating in God's love like we will be, then . . . so now we are ready for this way of loving which will be in the Rapture. So, now is the time to have "packed" in us all that we will have in the Rapture, but though we are not perfectly like this > we can keep growing in this.

"Therefore", don't we all need correction so we are ready the way God means this? God knows how He wants us.

So, do what Hebrews 12:6-11 says. Do not depend on your own ability and effort and trying, but submit to our Father and seek Him for His correction which has us become "partakers of His holiness" and so in His love we have His love's "peaceable fruit of righteousness" which Hebrews 12:6-11 says His correction "yields" in all of us who are His children.

do you find yourself so worn out from trying to be a good Christian for so long that the thought of being "on fire" for God stresses and wears you out, and then you end up not caring? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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If we "try" on our own, yes we fail and we can break down and become discouraged.

"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)

And yes, because we are not perfect, we can fail in seeking God like we need to. So, we need how You, O LORD, change us and correct us into truly seeking and submitting to You for Your correction and then obeying how You rule us in Your peace (Colossians 3:15, Philippians 4:5-7).

But, God is love, we also have one another to help us >

"Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." (James 5:16)

We pray for correction and success in this, because this is more than we can get ourselves to do

Godislove94 said:

I worry about being Lukewarm for not doing enough good works like witnessing enough, fasting enough, listening to nothing but Christian music, readin scripture enough, etc. But it scares me to do these things. When I was in my old church too I did a lot of these things to make sure God was pleased with me and it made me very resentful and angry at Him. I still carry that baggage.

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Our works and activities alone do not make us pleasing to our Father. But we need how He changes us to be gentle and quiet in Jesus who is so pleasing to Him ! ! !

"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 5:3)

So, trust Jesus, how He cares about you and has hope for you, more than you do, and you have us, too, caring for you in prayer.

Godislove94 said:

I worry about being Lukewarm for not doing enough good works like witnessing enough, fasting enough, listening to nothing but Christian music, readin scripture enough, etc. But it scares me to do these things. When I was in my old church too I did a lot of these things to make sure God was pleased with me and it made me very resentful and angry at Him. I still carry that baggage.

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I could be wrong about this, as this is only my interpretation of it, but to me "Lukewarm" refers to Christians who claim to profess Christ, who claim they are in Christ, who claim that He is their Lord and Saviour...

.......but yet they continue in their habitually sinful lives, making no effort to turn away from sin.

The whole Salvation thing is about Repentance and asking Christ to be our Lord and Saviour.

You can't have Salvation without Repentance. You can't accept Christ as your saviour if you don't believe you're doing something wrong first, right?

Sadly, a lot of "Christians" are going to say on the last day, "Lord, Lord" and be told "I never knew you. Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity."

To me, Profession without Repentance is what it means to be "Lukewarm". They acknowledge Christ for who He is, they profess that they believe in Him... but yet they don't do His commandments -- Repentance being one of them.

They continue living their lives as they see fit instead of truly putting Him in charge, and giving Him the reins. If they had, they would have repented and started showing some fruit.

Note, I am not judging any person in particular, and I would ask that nobody else reading this do so either -- this is not our place, but His alone. We can only warn people against this kind of behavior, for the Bible speaks openly about it.

Yeshua said - "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."

Based on this John 17:23 Scripture, Patricia King = We all know that the Father loves His son. You know, He loves Jesus so perfectly. As the Lord loves Him – that’s how much He loves you. You might think He can’t because I can’t be perfect like Jesus. God doesn’t love Jesus because He’s perfect, He loves Jesus because Jesus is His son. That’s why God loves Jesus and He loves you the same way. He loves you the same way He loves Jesus because you are His child. The Father Himself loves you”

Godislove94 said:

Do you ever worry that you won't be good enough to be raptured? And if you do, do you find yourself so worn out from trying to be a good Christian for so long that the thought of being "on fire" for God stresses and wears you out, and then you end up not caring? Lather, rinse, repeat.

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I think that you need to really think about what Jesus said was most important. Jesus said the most important commandment is that we love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, soul and mind. And the second most important commandment is to love others as we love ourselves.

Remember, it is not what you do that gives you salvation. It is only by what He, Jesus Christ did for us. He died for us that we can be reconciled back to Himself and the Father through the forgiveness of sin.

You are searching to become something. Become 'good' enough? We are and will NEVER be 'good' enough, that is why we need a Savior. Jesus is our Lord and Savior. He will never leave you or forsake you.

Don't try to be 'good' enough. Love the Only One who is good.

Godislove94 said:

I worry about being Lukewarm for not doing enough good works like witnessing enough, fasting enough, listening to nothing but Christian music, readin scripture enough, etc. But it scares me to do these things. When I was in my old church too I did a lot of these things to make sure God was pleased with me and it made me very resentful and angry at Him. I still carry that baggage.

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I am glad that you see that it is 'baggage' indeed.

There is a verse in the Bible that says that 'love covers a multitude of sin'.

Try to love others and do kind things for others. Do not seek recognition, but give it to the Lord. In blessing of others, we are blessed by God.

It's hard sometimes not to focus on ourselves. God wants us to love Him and love others. It takes some practice as it is not necessarily the thing that we would naturally do, but God tells us what is most important to Him. Try not to think about what you think makes the most sense for you to do to 'please' God, because as the Word says, 'His ways are not our ways'.

In everything you do, do it unto the Lord.

Godislove94 said:

I worry about being Lukewarm for not doing enough good works like witnessing enough, fasting enough, listening to nothing but Christian music, reading scripture enough, etc. But it scares me to do these things. When I was in my old church too I did a lot of these things to make sure God was pleased with me and it made me very resentful and angry at Him. I still carry that baggage.

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I still carry it too, yes, I do think about these things, but I know my salvation is not dependent on them, it's only natural to want to do or be good or better after becoming a Christian, you ask yourself "OK, what should I do now and the natural response to be or do better and improve and grow and be going somewhere, and we want to please the Father out of Love after becoming a Christian...

God Bless!

BrokenWarrior said:

We do not gain nor maintain our salvation by works.

Salvation is by Grace through Faith alone.

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Amen.

And to what another brother said, if salvation depended on our own goodness then yes, I'd definitely be worried.

Godislove94 said:

I worry about being Lukewarm for not doing enough good works like witnessing enough, fasting enough, listening to nothing but Christian music, readin scripture enough, etc. But it scares me to do these things. When I was in my old church too I did a lot of these things to make sure God was pleased with me and it made me very resentful and angry at Him. I still carry that baggage.

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Listening to what passes for Christian music nowadays isn't necessarily a great thing either. A lot of it is mindless, repetitive droning of the same words and verses over and over again. Frankly I'd say it's detrimental to a Christian to shut their mind off listening to nonsense like that and considering it to be worship.

It isn't easy being a Christian always and especially so when witnessing. It's an incredibly personal thing to a lot of people, faith, so to open up to people in such a manner isn't easy at all. Arguably it's easier online and that's where a lot of my witnessing happens, but I think in time you will become more comfortable with it in person as you become more comfortable in your own faith. It's one of the reasons I feel like, in an increasingly secular world, apologetics is a vital aspect of a Christian's life and study because even when evangelising or witnessing, there's an aspect of defence sometimes and the two can go hand-in-hand.

Spend more time with your Bible. Just read it. You don't need to do studies yet, just reacquaint yourself with the Word and make notes of questions that you can go back to and explore in detail.

As far as baggage goes, I think a good reference for that is in Matthew 7:13-14 about the narrow gate. A lot of people, for example, and this is especially common amongst lukewarm Christians, believe that being a 'part of the flock' gets them saved. A lot of them think going to church every Sunday or every now and then, sing a few hymns and 'do their good deed' for the week is all it takes. Saved by association. Well that's not the case at all. The narrow gate is narrow. You go to Christ alone and you go naked, without burden and without baggage, so working on that baggage is going to be an important part for you going forward because, at least in my opinion, until you reconcile and move forward, chances are you aren't going to be as receptive to the Scripture and to a revival of faith.

To go back to Matthew again and the Parable of Sower (Matt. 13:1-9), think of your faith as a seed and the ground it falls upon as the environment you've created for your faith to operate within. If you hold on to baggage or worry too much on these things then it's probably going to fall on the rocky ground and struggle because it has no root. By reconciling and dealing with your baggage and past misgivings, chances are it's going to fall on fertile soil and thrive.

All I can suggest, though, in short is to spend time reading your Bible. Pray and seek forgiveness for holding misgivings against God and try and to move past them and I think you'll notice a weight off your shoulders and a freedom to explore faith again and hopefully really find your feet and desire to dive deeper in to Scripture.