"The Prepper Manual for Jesus Followers"

Have you seen the TV "prepper" reality shows?  Maybe someone you know is a "prepper"...or you may even be a "prepper".  If you don't know what I'm talking about here's a definition from the Urban Dictionary.  (By the way, only check the urban dictionary when you need a definition of a new pop culture word...and reader beware...language is not like your grandmother's Funk and Wagnells.)

From the Urban Dictionary:

1.  Prepper:   Someone who focuses on preparedness, generally for various worst-case scenarios like peak oil or armageddon.  Sometimes used to avoid the more loaded term survivalist.

Basically preppers make sure they have the basics necessary to make it through whatever collapse of civilization might take place.  They prepare for life without all the protections and resources normally taken for granted every day…things like easy accessibility to power, food and police protection.  These folks imagine what it would be like if (or when) all the safety structures and provisions of civilization are suddenly removed.  Then they focus and prepare for how they and their families make it through these awful times?

While watching one of these prepper shows, it struck me the letters to the seven churches of Revelation 2-3 are a kind of “prepper manual” for the early church.  (I know my mind works weird but that’s the blessing of ADHD.)  In the beginning of Revelation, the apostle John is given a revelation of Jesus Christ.  Included in this revelation, Jesus gives seven letters to help seven churches, then living in present day Turkey, to help them get through the coming persecutions which had already started and would only increase in intensity.

Each letter has a pattern to it. A simple way to look at them is first Jesus gives the church a commendation for something good they have been doing.  Then He gives them a complaint about something they are doing.  Then He gives them a correction with a promised blessing it they actually do what He tells them.  In short, in these letters He tells them how to prepare for the bad scenario coming and how to do so successfully.  There you have it-- “The Preppers Manual for Jesus Followers”.

These Jesus Followers faced hard times with their resources and protection removed for a season.  They face economic and social attacks and some will even lose their lives.  They face the beast of the Roman Empire and false prophets of religion.  Adding insult to injury is the realization they hadn’t done anything wrong.  In fact, they were doing something right. They were following Jesus and not committing kingdom treason by compromising their identity as Jesus Followers.  Jesus wants them prepared.  He wants them to know He has not abandoned them during these pressure times.  He wants them to know that everything is still working according to His plans and under control…His control.

Now the all-important question:  “So what?”  What do these old letters mean to us?  There is plenty of gloom and doom talk going around today.  Anyone paying half attention to world events and national debates see real threats ahead.  So what should we do as Jesus Followers?

A major message of Revelation is that following Jesus means we are called to be overcomers during any time of struggle or even outright persecution.  I believe Jesus’ instructions to the seven churches gives us a basic “prepper manual” in living as vital communities of believers in the worst of circumstances… and not just surviving but taking kingdom initiatives.  We can actually participate in His victory over the forces of evil even while evil is doing all it can do.

The danger we face is not what goes on in the world.  The real danger for us as Jesus Followers is never really what is happening out there. The real danger is what is happening between our own ears.  The real danger facing us is when we allow ourselves to become distracted from who Christ is and what He has already done for us.  He has made a way for us to overcome everything and anything that comes against us. Focusing the viability of our hope or confidence on what happens around us is a recipe for defeat and depression.

What is hope?  My definition of biblical hope is:  “the absolute confidence that Jesus is Who He says He is and will do what He says He will do.”   As long as our hope is rooted in Jesus, what He has done and is doing, then our hope cannot be shaken.  What Jesus did by dying on the cross has finished what had to be finished for His life ultimately to overcome death in all its forms.  His resurrection and ascension enabled Him to give us as followers a share in His victory.  And His return is only to wrap up what He has started because of His victory.  Jesus is not in any danger and neither are we...even if we lose our own physical life by being faithfully identified with Him.  The hope of Jesus Followers must not be rooted in anything else.  Anything else can either be taken away from us by other people or undone by events. Our hope is rooted the person of Jesus Christ and that hope lives in us because He is in us.  He makes us overcomers before anything ever happens.  But if we shift the basis of our hope on to what we do, or on to what anyone else does or on circumstances– it’s over before it even gets started.

When darkness grows darker around Jesus Followers, that is not the time to wimp out and wish for a lifeboat from above.  That’s the time to suit up spiritually with the armor He has given us (see Ephesians 6:10-20, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5) and embrace these days as the greatest opportunity for people to come into the kingdom and for justice to roll down like a river.  It’s the time for us to be who He called us to be and draw on everything He already has given us.  Times of darkness are times to be fruitful and effective as His kingdom people.

I plan in the next few blogs to take each of the seven letters and see what we might hear from Jesus.  We will discover how to be Jesus followers who are not just going through religious motions nor only being reactionaries to what’s going on around us.  I believe there is actually empowering joy that comes from not living like victims. Looking forward to exploring the “Preppers Manual for Jesus Followers” with you. 

Share this blog with your friends...and please share your responses and insights too.

John P. Holsey, a fellow prepper