Left Behind: Am I Bruce Barnes?

I could write more about the sin of this world, but before I complain about the sins of my fellow man (removing the speck from his eye) I need to deal with my own sins (the plank in my eye).

     I know I will always sin; I will never be perfect.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I should do more than just hear God’s word; I should live it.  I should be an active rather than a passive Christian.

     The key word is “Genuine.”  Am I genuine?  Would I act differently, or should I act differently, if I were genuine?  And if I am not genuine, then I need to strive to be genuine!  I’m thinking of the character of Bruce Barnes from the Left Behind novels.  Here’s a guy who is a Christian, and believes in Christ, and yet is still left behind because he was not genuine.  He was lukewarm, like so many of us.  In the movie The Rapture, Mimi Rogers plays a character whose daughter has a dream that she’s in heaven.  She tells her mother, “I’m there, and Daddy’s there, too.”  When the mother asks her if she’s there, the daughter replies, “Yes, but only sort of.”

     I don’t want to be a “sort of.”  I don’t want to suffer the doubts of Roger’s character, or the come-uppance of the Bruce Barnes character, having the same kind of lukewarm existence they had that eventually separated them from God when Jesus returned.  When the rapture occurs, if it occurs in my lifetime, I don’t want to be the one left behind, saying “I should’ve been a better Christian.”

- From my journal, January 2000