In The Sky

Something Zeph and Johnny have said has confused me, but the Lord just gave me the answer. Johnny says the Lord is coming soon to rapture us before the big disaster. Zeph says there isn't going to be a rapture because He didn't save the people who are suffering all over the world, so why would He save us? But the Lord's answer to this is, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." The truth is ...that none of us controlled, as far as we know, where we were born, and some parts of the world are worse than others. But any of us could go over to where it is really bad and join in the suffering our brothers and sisters are experiencing there. Some people do leave the first world for the third world, and some of them are caught up in the persecutions of believers. Speaking personally, I have neither the calling nor the means to go there. I am pretty much stuck in the first world, and that is as the Lord intended for me. The truth is that we are one who love the Lord, so their suffering is my suffering, and vice-versa. It is a mistake to think there is no suffering in the first world--it is just of a different nature. We are one family, though, the lovers of Christ. We are one (read John 17). Realize also that not everyone in those terrible places is being subjected to persecution. We only hear about the worst cases, but not everyone has those troubles. Some people here in the first world suffer horrific persecution, too. God knows who is His, and He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. Not all are apportioned persecutions unto torture or death, although it is true that to love the Lord is to be persecuted in some fashion. It is not right for believers to think they should be suffering, or to feel left out because they aren't suffering, or to think they are getting off Scott free because some believers are suffering more than others. Compassion, empathy, helpfulness--these are good things to feel about others' suffering. All joy and all suffering of any individual belongs to the whole. It is right for believers to feel one with the body, and to love and obey the Lord and seek Him in all things. And if the Lord chooses to rapture some of us out seemingly without our having suffered, that is His prerogative. He will have mercy on whom He has mercy. It isn't personal. None are innocent here or worthy of escaping, but some will anyway. Some will, because He is coming, and we will meet him in the sky.