The God You Believe In

Someday... I will die. Based on what I read in the Bible, this is true... unless God snatches me up before then.

Either way... death, rapture, Christ's second coming... I WILL meet the Lord.

Stop and close your eyes... dwell on this and get a good mental picture of this... you're standing before God...

Whatever picture you have of God right there, that's the level of worship you'll muster today. If you aren't picturing something amazing, beautiful, terrifying, and powerful, then you're going to approach Him flippantly.

God is loving, patient, merciful, and kind. But we can't miss that He is also completely just... that He will pour out wrath and judgment at the end.

I don't think picturing wrath and raw power as though it were Hitler or Napoleon or any conqueror of man. No... the devastation that awaits those who rebel against God will be unparalleled. This is the One who created life, loves enough to recreate life, and is just enough to destroy it when necessary. 

He's seated on a majestic throne in heaven, not some cheap gaudy throne of gold in a castle made on stone. He's surrounded by countless angels, not mere men. He can make or take life with His words... He doesn't need a sword, a gun, or an a-bomb. Men don't just bow to their knee when in His presence, but rather fall to their face in sheer fear. 

I don't live my life in terror of Him. I try to live my life in thanks to Him... knowing that this God, the one seated on that throne, loves me. That God... I can follow that.

And the bigger He gets in my mind's eye, the more reverent my worship will be, the closer I'll walk by His side, the more I'll not treat His word as a set of rules but as a loving path to guide my feet. I'll stop excusing my sin. I'll stop making this life about me.

I'm not here long. Someday... I'll die. But eternity starts now... how will I spend it? How will you? Who do you see seated on the throne before you?