Evangelical believers believe they will rule and reign (actually either rule or reign is sufficient) with Christ. Many, perhaps most of those who live in America, are not able to rule their own personality let alone the nations of the earth.

The verse above tells us what must be true of us if we expect to rule with Jesus Christ over the kingdoms of the earth.

We must be called.

We must be chosen.

We must be proven faithful.

No individual can approach Christ unless the Father draws him. During the Church Age the Gospel has been preached to all nations, and then those whom the Spirit touches come to Jesus. We do not choose Jesus, He chooses us. He calls us to follow Him just as He did the first Apostles.

However, many are called but few are chosen.

Of those who are called to follow the Lord, a few really respond to His call. They take up their cross and follow the Master. He becomes everything to them. When the Lord Jesus sees their single-mindedness of purpose He chooses them to be part of His Body, part of the royal priesthood. They receive the white voting pebble denoting acceptance in the ranks of the chosen few.

But to be called and chosen is not sufficient to qualify us to ride with Christ in the cavalry charge of Armageddon. We must be proven faithful. We must be shown to be worthy and capable of membership in the ruling priesthood, in the army of the Lord. We must attain the first resurrection from the dead, the resurrection of the royal priesthood.

Faithfulness is so important that the very name of the Commander in Chief, the supreme General who rides at the head of the army that will invade the earth, is Faithful and True.

How many believers make a fine start in the Lord, pressing forward until they pass into the ranks of the chosen few? Satan sees this and does not like it.

Soon they are visited with a master deception. Some of them fall because their faithfulness to Christ is not at the level required of the warriors in His army.

I think the Lord told me many will be deceived and fall away in the next few years. Perhaps some of these deceived ones will be Christians of decades of victorious experience.

Why then would they fall?

They fall because they have not died with Christ on the cross. They still are holding on to part of their life. They are not utterly faithful.

When they are faced with death to their fervent desires, realizing their hopes may never be realized in the present world, they permit deception to enter their mind. They leave their husband or wife for someone who seems to be the perfect fulfillment of all their dreams, or do something else similarly destructive.

Their hope for an earthly paradise is an illusion, of course.

But if they are not rigorously committed to death, to the total denial of their hopes and dreams, even dreams of ministry, they are vulnerable to the supremely effective deceits of the enemy.

Only those of the most extraordinary faithfulness and integrity will finally take their place behind the Commander whose robe is dipped in blood.

You can ride with Christ but you are going to have to mean business with God!