I Want to be Left Behind

Jesus spoke to his disciples about his second coming, saying "one will be taken and the other left." Then he adds, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." The Left Behind series popularized a dispensational teaching that one day Christians will disappear to heaven, and those left behind will face a terrible period of tribulation. Yet Jesus compares his second coming to the days of Noah when the "flood came and took them all away" (Matthew 24:39) and the ones left behind were the people who were saved. The Bible tells us that one day heaven and earth will merge, and God will dwell forever with his people on this earth made new (Revelation 21:1-4). What if God's children are not disembodied spirits for all eternity, but real people, in real bodies, doing real things, on this real earth? What if Jesus returns not to take us away from the earth and destroy it but to begin renewing all things with us? What if the good news of what God has planned for you is better than you think? Paul calls the return of Jesus "the blessed hope" (Titus 2:13). Indeed, there may be more reasons than we thought to find hope in the return of Jesus and the renewal of all things.