Jesus' question: faith

Jesus said to his disciples: "When the son of man returns, will he find faith in the earth?"

Still an important question. I think he WILL find it. But faith won't be the major thing he finds. It'll be a pearl of great price.

Jesus will find doctrine. Christians consider this very important. They judge each other by doctrine. Although Jesus said people will know us by our love, people try to know if we are indeed brothers and sisters in Christ by what folks believe.

Not that love is missing. I think Jesus will definitely find love when he comes back to earth in bodily form. Many Christians are pretty loving toward each other ...and their fellow humans.

Jesus will find submission. He'll find a whole lotta submission. Submission that never learned to endure, submission that stopped hoping and stopped dreaming and made a theology of suffering to disguise bad teaching that steals our faith.

Jesus will find Moral behavior. Christians like good moral behavior. We judge and condemn others by how moral we think those others are. We not only judge the bad works of fellow Christians, we judge good works too.

Jesus told us to do good works and to occupy til he come. But look at those parable of works...these good works often have to do with investing faith. The occupation Jesus calls for is an occupation and invasion of the devil's territory: our minds. Sure, we must destroy the devil's works in society and do exploits -- but this doesn't mean bombing abortion clinics (as one -and only one-- person did). Nor does it mean cruelly persecuting people who are sinners.

But Jesus will not find faith. Faith comes from loving and reading and trusting that everything Jesus said was verily, verily, TRUE...was verily, verily, true. We are called to live a life of faith....where the unspiritual strongholds in our mind are destroyed by our faith in God's love, care, and miraculous power. Let Jesus find overcoming faith when he comes to earth. LEt him find overcoming faith even before he comes...that we may conquer Satanic strongholds of discouragement, diseases, doubt, grief, sorrow..... Let us truly occupy the enemy's territory and heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons.......til Jesus comes.