The unexpected journey: the journey continues

The hope that I am speaking about—the hope that causes you to look at this life very differently than you might look at it now as a Christian, is a hope that causes you to embrace change, perhaps even radical change, in order to be ready or prepared for the things that await you in the Father’s eternity. Once the Holy Spirit is allowed to open this kind of hope before you, you begin to find some sense in the outlandish things that the apostle Paul had to say. It is the apostle Peter who comments that some of Paul’s comments are “hard to understand.” The apostle Paul makes statements about enduring hardship or suffering as he does. He says that we will suffer many hardships on our way to entering into the kingdom of God. He speaks of the Christians in Corinth as having great trials of affliction or being tested with many troubles. He states that though they are extremely poor they have an abundance of joy! Please tell me, WHO in their right mind would sign up for that kind of journey?! I suppose the answer is no one in their right mind; only those whose mind has been renewed by the Holy Spirit and the washing of the Word of God. I think that there would be little doubt that we are somewhere in the latter stages of the end of time. The apostle John speaks about being in the end-times in his epistles written around 2000-years ago. Those who have given themselves to study and understand prophetic scripture dealing with the end-times agree that this world is nearing the end of this age. We are living in a world of hopelessness that is leading to a world of chaos. Now more than ever will people of hope shine in such dismal darkness. This is why the hope that I speak about is far deeper than the temporal whatever that we have yelled at God about when it did not happen, or we did not get it. This is the hope that carried Jesus from garden of Gethsemane to his passion, death and resurrection. This hope was borne out of a deep and abiding relationship with his father. It is this relationship that you and I must enter into today in order to be the shining beacon that an increasingly hopeless world will need. This is crux of the unexpected journey. I would have sworn to you that I had such a relationship in my former days. I recall times that I sat alone in the sanctuary crying out to God, “I love you Lord,” only to hear this still small voice deep within me reply, “No you don’t.” Back then I rebuked it as a lying thought. However today I understand it to have been the Holy Spirit gently challenging me to let go of my religion and trust him to take me on a journey. If this resonates within your heart, then perhaps you are not reading this by accident. Perhaps you too are only steps away from such a journey. There is a website on its way that will offer you some hope; some direction.