By Trent Thornton

Christ; first, last and foremost should be uppermost in your thinking. Make sure that you have the pardon of Jesus who died to give you eternal life. How strong is your relationship with Him? How often do you read His Word?

Is your Christian witness being carried out in your personal life or is your lifestyle indistinguishable from non-believers? This is something you cannot afford to get wrong, so before you can worry about anything else you need to make sure that you are right with the King of kings.

Witness to others: This isn’t just a good idea, it’s our mandate as believers. God’s ideal will is for NO ONE, not one single soul to ever be condemned. Knowing that and knowing that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in America alone need our help, what justification do you think we’ll have when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ?

There are several websites which can help you improve your delivery of the gospel message. Before you know it, you’ll be able to present the Good News in about ten or fifteen minutes. My experience with this is that after a while it becomes so easy that you start thinking of it as a game (in a good way). The Holy Spirit will enable those who wish to share the gospel so you don’t have to worry about your lack of articulate speaking skills.

Missionary Work: If you are not able to participate in missionary work for whatever reason, I can well understand. I myself work a job that wouldn’t be available to me anymore if I left for a month for a missionary assignment overseas. It is, however, a critical assignment and my personal belief is that if you’re not doing it yourself, you should likely consider contributing money or supplies to those who are.

If Americans are badly in need of Christ, we can say we at least live in a nominally Christian nation filled to overflowing with churches and Christian literature and television programming. People in third world nations are not so fortunate.

Tithe and Participation: Enabling your local church to carry out food and clothing drives as well as pay their employees who organize volunteer work is something you’ll never regret. Likewise, contributing your blood donations and time to such activities will, if nothing else, leave you with the assurance that you are making a difference in people’s lives. Maybe your church is having a co-op with Habitat for Humanity and they need people to help with constructing houses for those less fortunate.

Or perhaps the church will sponsor missionaries for trips overseas doing expensive (and potentially dangerous) work. There are no shortage of options. For as pitiful as it may be, I assist with different programs in my own church. I’m by no means perfect (or even very good, for that matter) but recently I took over the podcast duties so that each week I play some small part in helping people learn about the word of God from my pastor, whom I consider to be a true teacher of God.

These are all small yet worthwhile things you, as a messenger of Christ, can do which are badly needed and can contribute to people coming to know Jesus Christ as Savior. You may personally never convert a single soul, but if you enable (by any means) others to do so, trust me you’ll never regret it. There’s always more work to be done so don’t think there’s not enough to go around.

By Kyle Braselton

The cornerstone to Christianity is the belief that Christ died for our sins and that He will one day return for His children and judge the rest. This, as Christians, we can be sure of.

[Jesus said,] “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:36-38

We do not know when the Rapture will take place. It will be at a different time across the globe when it happens. Some people will be asleep and others in the field. We won’t know the year, much less, the time of day. I was just in a conversation where this man mentioned that people have been pointing to the Antichrist for years and years. This is the danger of predicting dates. It is clear we cannot know the Day of the Lord.

I personally feel that the world is at a point to where it is ready for the final judgment. I see the world at the height of everything. History has sped up in every facet of our lives. If you were to graph our lives you would see a sharp curve in the last century’s speed of advancement in technology, science, medicine, the acceptance of perversion and sin, natural disasters, diseases and mutations of viruses, wars, rumors of wars, false prophets, and the global outreach of the Word. We have reached pinnacles of human good and bad. The waves are getting more frequent and more intense:

“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.

At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:6-14).

We should do what Christians have always been called to do, but really do it. The message doesn’t change. We are to love one another as Christ said, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John 13:34).

We should study the Bible so we can live like Jesus. We should witness at every opportunity. We should fellowship. We should walk and talk with God. We should learn as much as we can. We should be stashing away heavenly treasures. We should have a passion for Christ and understand His work on the cross.

I have recently come back to the Word. I fell away during college and had some hard times. I found God again when He pulled me out of despair. But recently, I have found a passion for His Word. This is where we should start. This is where I learned to walk with God, and walking with God keeps me focused on God at all times. When I am driving, walking, eating, talking, I am thinking about God. This is much different than how I used to be, and I enjoy life a lot more.

Other than the obvious, God tells us to plan for the future since we do not know when He will return. We are instructed to watch and be ready:

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh. Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” (Matthew 24:42-46).

John tells us in the book of Revelation that those who long for His return will get a crown in heaven. When we plan for the future, we should watch and strive for that crown. But it might be good to plan and help others post-Rapture.

Perhaps Christians can save lives even after leaving the world. Websites and books have been dedicated to instructing those who are left behind already. There are bumper stickers that plant the seed: “In case of the Rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned.” When the Rapture happens, people need to know what happened so they can come to the Truth.