Amen

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” ~ Rev 22:17

Something I have tried to practice more recently in my personal prayers is to incorporate the things that The Bible specifically tells us to pray for.

So, for example, I regularly pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
I also pray (though this is not an instruction but is clearly at the heart of Paul's teaching) that 'All Israel would be saved.'

Both of these things would have sat a little uncomfortably with me five years ago, when my stance on Israel and all things Jewish was considerably different.

Of course I have no problem (and never have had) with Jews getting saved. On the contrary, I have always thought that a marvellous thing. And I have never been anti-Semitic. I love Jewish people and culture. After all, I owe so much of my heritage to it. And my Jesus was Jewish, and, though I am not sure race has any feature in heaven, he is still Jewish.

But my problem was more jealousy. I suppose I felt inferior, and coming from an insecure place that has been an issue. So my problem was never with Jew's but with the kind of Christians that almost have a reverence for Jews themselves, as if they were some kind of super-race.

I said then, and still say now, that what makes the Jews special (apart from being special in all kinds of cultural ways, in which many cultures are special) is that God chose them.

In my last life-group there are a few of these people who are Jewish groupies. And woe betide you if you say anything to criticise Israel.

And my point was, and often is, that Israel can do wrong just as much as any other nation, and still needs to come under God's righteous standard. They don't have some kind of immunity to behave in any way they see fit simply because they are the chosen people.

But I had become so antagonistic to these Christian Zionists that I almost lost sight of God in it.

And a couple of friends challenged me strongly over my attitude. And they bought me back to scripture.

God blesses those who bless Israel.
God is a covenant keeping God, above all things, and he will not break his promise with the Jewish people.
He loves them still.
And so I came tom a new place of humility on this subject. I needed to bow to God and check my attitude.

And further more, to renew my mind. As Bob Dylan put it, change my way of thinking. 'Get myself a different set of rules'.

So Now I pray for Israel most every day.

Why?

Because God want's me to, and I love him.

And with that, my heart has changed.

Now why have I shared all this when talking about the return of Christ?


The instruction is clear.

The Spirit and the Bride say 'Come'.
So this is the cry of God himself and of the church. A yearning for Christ to come.

But do I want that?

Do I really want that?

We are told; 'Let all who hear say 'Come'.  So this is an instruction.

And who are we saying 'Come', to?

To Jesus.

So it is a prayer. A prayer and a command to prayer. 

I have now started to pray for this daily.


Let me be clear. My feelings towards the second coming clearly delineate my attitude to the next world in relation to the current one.

In short, the temptation to me is to love this world and to hold onto it. After all, on the surface level, it is all I have known.

And yet we are told not to love our lives so much as to shrink back from death. I would go as far as to say that this is the key message of Revelation.

No one is suggesting we ought to be suicidal, or long for death, as such. But there is a sense in which we should never be too comfortable here. 

As the old song says;

This world is not my home, I'm just passing thorough.

This, for me, is the same as my former attitude to Christian Zionists, and by default, to Israel, in that it needs to change. Our minds and hearts need to be renewed.

I believe that this is, in large part, why we are instructed to pray for the second coming.

we are promised;  “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.


And Jesus told us back in the sermon on the mount that Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.This prayer checks out where our treasure is, and therefore where our hearts are at too.

Is our treasure here and now in this life?

Or is it the reward that Jesus brings with him? (as If his coming wasn't reward enough).

This is the end of my blogging adventures in Revelation, and next week I will be back with a new series,
So I thought that there was no better way to end this blog than with the words at the end of the Prophecy we have been studying and give the Amen to the prayer we are instructed to pray.

 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

Yes, his grace be with us,

This day,
And all days,

Amen
.