We're still here!

I’m sure that many of you have seen the billboard signs that predicted that the world was going to end on May 21, 2011.  That was yesterday.  I noticed these billboard announcements months ago, but I wasn’t going to blog about it until today, not because I was worried, but because I wasn’t going to give any glory to the one who made this prediction that I knew wasn’t going to come true.  It was Harold Camping.  Check out this link.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/atlantic/20110512/ts_atlantic/haroldcampingquotes37632

As you see, this isn’t the first time that Camping has predicted the end of the world; he also said it was going end back in 1994.  He was wrong both times!

I entitled my blog today “we’re still here”; I did so because I was trying to convey sarcasm (not an easy thing to convey in word form); because Camping’s claim that the world was going to end yesterday was asinine.  It was asinine to claim the world was going to end back in 1994, and then to try again now just makes me shake my head.  

My heart goes out to those of you who were severely impacted by Camping’s words.  Some of you may have legitimately believed that yesterday was going to be the last day of your life.  To anyone who had such pain because of Camping, I want to say that clearly Camping doesn’t speak for every Christian.  I, for one, didn’t change my routine one iota as I saw May 21st approaching.  I want to say I’m sorry to anyone who was negatively impacted by Harold Camping.

I always try to look at things in a positive way, whenever I can.  The good news about this whole Camping episode is if you were not ready to meet God yesterday, if you were not reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, you now have a second chance to do so!

I’m reminded of what I blogged about last month when we celebrated Good Friday and Easter.  On Good Friday, we celebrated how Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and for me.  He did this because we are all sinners; our sin is repugnant to God.  Jesus was the only one who was qualified to pay the price of that sin (because He is sinless; He is the spotless “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” as John put it in John 1:29).  Because of His substitutionary atonement for us, we can be in right relationship with God.

Furthermore, on Easter, we celebrated how Jesus bodily arose from the grave!  Consider this: if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead then He is a liar.  I say this because He repeatedly declared that He was going to die and subsequently be resurrected.  Hallelujah, Jesus is not a liar; He really did arise from the dead!

This only leaves us with how we are going to respond.  There are only two options, actually just two words: acceptance or rejection.  Accept God’s plan of salvation or reject it.  Accept Jesus (or “believe” in Him as it says repeatedly in the book of John) or reject Him.  It’s your choice.  I implore you, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:20: “be reconciled to God.”

Kevin