Have We Missed The Rapture Of Love (For God)?
It's a New Year. We pray that everyone has a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2021! But as Chief Apostle Gunn has reminded us, do not seek worldly prosperity anymore -- seek that your soul prospers by choosing God first, not success not money, not the world's approval.
And no, we don't need a New Year's resolution to accomplish this. What we need is to make a decision. Deliverance and change come from our decisions. Let's decide to not let another second, minute, hour, day, month, a year go by without a full surrender and full expression of our love for God.
So often, we hear people say, “I want to be raptured up with Jesus when he returns” even when there is not fruit of their love for God. But this week, through the teaching, Chief Apostle Gunn has shown us the heart of God and how wrong that mindset truly is.
Before we can be raptured up into Heaven, we first need to be raptured up in our love for God while we are on Earth. We can be raptured up with a passion for him and remain in his joy, in his peace, in his plan and his ways.
It is easy for us to get caught up in our jobs, our marriages, our children, fitting in, sports, television, games, fashion, social media, family drama, gossip, spending money, traveling, and the like, but imagine if we stop putting these things first, and invested our wasted time in being caught up with the Lord every day. What if the time, energy, and even love we put into worldly things - things that will burn in the fire - was instead invested in God and his Kingdowm, and we once and for all make the decision to put him first?
It's sad to think that God created us to dwell in him on Earth, to spend time with him, to choose to love him back, to do his will and his work, and to glorify him. But we spend most of our time on Earth ignoring him and only loving what he can do for us instead of who he is.
Isaiah 43:7: Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
Chief Apostle said we can't make God first in our troubles and in meeting our needs but not first and foremost in our lives and all that we do. As a result, we are calling on him with double-minds, un-pure hearts, and a lack of love.
What is it that we love the most, we talk about the most and give the most time and attention to? Who or what gets most of our day? We can no longer use having to work and pay bills, having kids, having a spouse, etc., as excuses. Because the Bible and our leader have taught us various ways and examples we can acknowledge, pray and praise God even when we are busy with work, tending to the house, or in a relationship, in fact, the people we are in a relationship with, whether spouses, fiances, sisters, brothers, cousins, parents, children or friends, should be willing to join us in spending time with God or should be encouraging us to do so.
If we were in a courtship with someone and they spent all of their time with us talking about someone else or they always told us they were busy spending time with someone else, would we believe that they loved us? It’s the same thing with God. How does he feel? Does he believe us? Do we consider how he feels watching just how much of our 24-hour day we give to everything but him and he is the one who created and gave us the time?
I took some time to look at how I spend my 24 hours, and I see clearly that God does not get enough of my time, which means he does not get enough of my love and attention either. For example, even while writing this blog, God showed me how easily I put him on the back burner. I made a commitment to pray at noon. Noon came and I was trying to fix something on this website, and I was so focused on that, I missed the noon prayer time. I was fully aware of the time. It was almost 1 p.m. On the outside, it may appear that I was doing something good and for God, but God is more important than anything, even this blog. If I committed to meet him in prayer, then I owe it to him to put him first, stop working, pray, and come back. What if there was something he needed to tell me before I finished the blog? And in fact, when I came to my senses and got up to pray, he did give me something to add. This was a clear example of what Chief meant when he told us the other day in service that even things we think we are doing that are Godly, can be wrong if we aren't putting God first.
If we don't want to spend time with God on Earth and put him first before everything we do, everyone in our lives, and everything we want and have, why do we even want to go to Heaven? Heaven is where we will spend Eternity with Him and be able to worship Him without interruption. Better yet, if we won't allow ourselves to be raptured up in God now, what even makes us think we will be able to make it to Heaven? God has to know us to let us into Heaven. If we don't love him now and give him our attention, how can he know us?
Matthew 7:21-23: Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Some synonyms for being raptured include adoration, elation, wholly absorbed.
When is the last time we simply adored God? When was the last time we were elated to spend time with him, to pray, to worship him, to do something for him? When was the last time we were wholly absorbed in Him, in the Word, in the things of God?
God never said that we have to wait for Heaven to do these things. He wants to receive our love and our worship now.
John 14:21: He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Mark 12:29-31: And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
Matthew 6:24: No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
When we learn to truly love God here on Earth, then we can effectively love ourselves and love others. How can we love the creation and not the Creator? Without loving God first we won't have the capacity to love the spouses, children, family, friends, and colleagues entrusted to us on Earth, because when we love God we watch, we pray, we fast, we tithe, we sow, we care, we consider, we pay attention. And without those things, we will never have the depth and capacity to do our best by our loved ones.
On Saturday's FORREAL Radio Broadcast Chief taught "Love God, Love God." He asked what happened to our fire for God (which is supposed to be fueled by love). When we first get saved, we want to read our word, pray, praise, fast, talk about God all the time, and fellowship with the saints, but then we let our fire fizzle out and do nothing to rekindle it. I became saved about 16 years ago. I will not be able to make it into heaven if I am thinking the love I had for God when I first got saved will carry me there. My love should have grown by now. My fire should be inextinguishable by now. Listen to the broadcast, it will change your life if you let it.
We encourage you to join us on our God First Fast. We are fasting this month, from 7 a.m. - 12 p.m., through the 21st -- drinking water only and spending as much time in the word and in prayer as possible. As Chief said, if we pray, we will stay, and if we fast, we will last! This is how we become unstuck, how we change, how we grow, how we love, how we reignite our fire and lay ourselves down before God!
What a word from the Lord? This post is another reminder to us, to me to Love God,Love God!!!! Thank you for your labor Chief Apostle and Apostle Kanya for sharing this FIRE 🔥 FIRE!!!! I need The Lord and not for what he does but for who HE IS!!!!!