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Rapture

Home Going!

Home Going!
By Terry James

Perhaps you will forgive the personal nature of this week’s commentary. Or, as I hope, maybe it will strike a common chord among those who are Heaven-bound.

I write this with a longtime friend in mind who shared the love of God in so many ways. Particularly, she loved God’s prophetic Word, and even more so the pre-Trib view of eschatology as presented by those who write for our website.

I’ve been expecting her home-going for quite some time due to her ill health and rapid deterioration. Nonetheless, I was more or less blindsided when my daughter informed me that my friend had passed away. I suppose one never gets easily past someone who is close leaving us, even if that person is a believer and you know they are now safe at home.

My friend, Gail Blackburn, lost her husband, Tom, not long ago. It was obvious when we talked on several occasions since Tom’s passing that Gail was looking forward to being free of the pain and crippled state she suffered and being with her beloved Tom again. She is now in that eternal realm and is enjoying life exactly as she was ready to accept.

God’s will was always in Gail’s servant’s heart. I know this as fact, because when we were on the phone, we discussed time and time again just what the Lord meant to her.

I am in a habit of saving voicemails I get from those I love on occasion, and today I have listened to a couple from Gail. Her love for Christ and all He had done for her was obvious even when she was simply leaving a message for me to call back when I could.

Part of Gail’s special gifts was the interest she took in helping guide younger women in helping them nurture their children.

Angie, in informing me of her passing away, wrote the following: “What an incredibly special woman and friend she was. I learned things from her as a young mom that have carried me through all phases of parenting and marriage.”

I’m certain this will be the thoughts of the many she touched over the years.

For me, she loved to talk about Jesus coming again in the Rapture. The Lord obviously wanted her next to Him before that glorious event, so she will be on the front line of the saints to greet those who are chosen to take part as those still alive at that magnificent moment.

You and I hope to be in that throng, of course. That’s why we are “Rapture ready,” as our website’s name indicates.

It has been conjectured, and I believe, that when Jesus calls us to Himself (Revelation 4:1), those still alive will somehow arrive at that face-to-face meeting with our Lord and Savior at precisely the moment those who have gone through the portal of death will see His wonderful face. God’s eternal realm is outside of the thing called time that He created for man. Anything is possible in that eternal sphere.

So we will see Gail, Tom, and all others gone before. And we will know each other as well as we know our own family members here on earth — even though we never met and even lived in other centuries.

What a glorious home-going that will be!

“But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13–17)

— Terry

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