Most believers suspect that the Rapture is not far away. Our world is not getting any better. It seems like it is getting ripe for the antichrist to appear. While many Christians hope it is near, some have mixed feelings about it.

Take a moment and think about something. We know that the Lord will richly reward His faithful servants. He will not fail to do this as He promised. We also have heard that there is no greater joy that a believer can have than being in the will of God. I certainly have found it true. Personally, though there has been testings along the way, I would not trade them for anything. They have revealed God’s care, provision, and wisdom.

However, while thinking about the Rapture, I have to wonder how much have you as a believer done in the first half of the year for Him? Could you have done more? I would have to say that I know I could have.

If He were to come today, would you be disappointed because there is so much you still want to see and do here? Perhaps it is time to reevaluate what you are living for. We ought to be living for His Kingdom: (“seek ye first the kingdom of God” Matthew 6:33). 

Christian friend, you cannot take anything here with you to glory. Nor will you earn any rewards apart from what is in His will for you. Why not submit yourself afresh to doing His will today, and then you will discover that it is “good, acceptable, and perfect” (Romans 12:2)?

Jesus made the above statement to a very religious man named Nicodemus. This man was one of the leaders of a religious group in Israel called the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were well-known as being very zealous in keeping the laws of Moses. Most likely, this man even memorized the five books of Moses in the Bible and tried to keep them.

But when this man came to Jesus that night, Jesus immediately brushed aside this man’s deeds and character – and got right to the point: Nicodemus, you must be born again to go to Heaven!

Nicodemus understood the importance of being “born again,” but he did not know how. It was something that seemed impossible for an old man. He never heard of such a thing.

What Jesus was saying shocked him. His words implied that works – even religious ones – had nothing to do with salvation. It did not matter what someone did or had become in the way of righteousness or unrighteousness. No one can go to Heaven without being “born again.”

When explaining what He meant, Jesus later said that only the Holy Spirit can produce the new birth. Flesh and blood are incapable of bringing it about.

When a sinner calls on God in faith to save him or her based on what Christ did on the cross to pay for our sins, the Holy Spirit produces the new birth in the individual. It is He alone that creates the new birth. And when He does, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17). God changes the life.

Have you turned from sin and called on the Lord to save you? Remember what Jesus said: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Why not do it today?