Vince Deagler

i’m thinking by now most of you have heard that on may 21 (this saturday) the world is supposed to come to an end.  now, to be honest, i haven’t paid much attention so i can’t tell you much by way of details.  but it does give us an opportunity to think about “what if…?

here is what i’m gettin at.  it is very similar to a funeral.  we come to a memorial service and generally a few things are true.  most of our lives are spent trying to escape the reality of our mortality.  we don’t like to think about death and so we push it out on the edges of our existence.  we only deal with it when we have to in general.  second, while at the service there is a simple reality that we must embrace.  barring the rapture (another topic for another time) we will all die.  the funeral service forces us to deal with this.

now, i’m thinking this prognosticator is wrong.  i find it a bit strange that only this guy has figured this out, no one else.  but i suppose stranger things have happened.  so at the risk of being lumped in with the rest of the end of the worlders, let me ponder on the thought…what if he’s right.

then this would be an excellent time to evaluate your relationship with god.  if sunday arrives and the world has not ended, no harm has been done by this evaluation.  but remember, were going for the what if scenario.  in that case, this evaluation is crucial to your preparedness.  the author of hebrews asks “how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?”  good question.  ever since adam and eve rebelled against god in the garden, man has been born estranged from god.  disconnected.  living under the delusion we can make it on our own.  the bible says otherwise.  the bible says we were designed to live under gods rule.  that only through god can we experience life to its very full.  that requires re-connection where i surrender the control of my life to god so he can pour his life into mine.  have you ever done this?  whether the world ends saturday or not, i would suggest this is exactly what you should do.

once you have re-connected, it is gods intention to make you a new creation.  the model he works off of is jesus.  he does this by working through the holy spirit and scriptures.  and the whole process is driven by my continued submission to his work.  you see, god works by permission only.  he won’t impose himself on us.  he waits for us to yield.  in scripture we are told we will be held accountable for how we have lived after we have re-connected with god.  from gods perspective when we did this, our lives ceased to be our own, they became his.  he will hold us accountable for what we did with the life that belongs to him.  wouldn’t you be glad you took a moment from your busy schedule to evaluate how things were going in this ongoing process to become like jesus, if this guy is right?  and if he’s wrong?  well do you really think as a christian its a bad idea to evaluate your personal spiritual journey?  so, i encourage you to do just that.  see if there are areas where instead of allowing god to shape you and mold you into the person he wants you to become, you have stubbornly hung on to something that impedes the process of becoming like jesus.  either way, i see this as a good thing.

do i think the world is ending?  yes, in fact i know this is true, but i doubt it will be this saturday.  but please understand, god doesn’t tell us things like the world is going to end to scare us, control us, manipulate us.  no, but he does want us to be ready.  and he does want us to experience the kind of life only he can give.  so as silly as this whole end of the world thing seems to be, turn it into a positive by evaluating where you are with god, and doing what you will be glad you did on the day the world does end.

blessings, vince

hope to see you there.  blessings, vince