This word "rapture" may stir up thoughts of something so wonderful that it would take us out of the mundane and ordinary every day experience and lift us up to a place of sheer joy; just like the song says: "Caught up in the rapture of love." This word "rapture" is defined in Funk and Wagnalls dictionary as: "The act of transferring a person from one place to another, a snatching away." It also says that rapture "comes from the Latin word "rapio" which means to seize or the state of being rapt" (which means to be carried away or transported bodily.)

Now there is another word I'd like to speak of. "Hope". This word has lost it's meaning over time. It is now mostly used in a sense of wishful thinking only, but not with any real expectation that the thing hoped for will actually happen. For example, we might say: "The weather report is forecasting rain but I hope it doesn't rain because I made plans." So off we go, with umbrella in hand, not really having expected that bright sunny day. We just wished it would be so. Yet the dictionary describes hope as: "to desire with expectation of obtaining, to have confidence. Desire accompanied by expectation."

I bring these two words up because of their connection to each other. "The Rapture" is a promised future event and our "Hope" is the confident expectation of experiencing it.

"The Rapture" is the hope of the saved. Jesus promised when He left that He would come again and take all of those who believe in Him to be where He is or rather where He was about to go since He spoke these words while He was still here on earth. He said:

"In my father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you will be also."
John 14:2&3

The Apostle Paul wrote about this experience saying:

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the chief angel, with the trumpet call of God: and the dead in Christ will come to life first; then we who are still living will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so will we be forever with the Lord."
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

Awesome isn't it? And wonderful beyond words! And yet it seems so odd to me that this, being the Hope of all who believe in Jesus as their Savior, is spoken about so little amongst Christians. And, even worse, some do not even believe in it at all! But regardless of whether we believe in it or not, it will absolutely occur at the appointed time. The dead in Christ (in other words, those who have died who believed in Jesus as their Savior or Messiah) will be resurrected, and those of us who believe, who are alive at the time of His appearing (the Rapture) will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. We will literally be "snatched away" by Jesus Himself fulfilling the promise that He made when He said that He would come again to take us to be where He is. Heaven is out true home. We are strangers and pilgrims in this world. The apostle Paul put it so beautifully when he wrote:

"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
Philippians 3:20&21

He also wrote in another place about the Rapture saying:

"Behold I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep (in other words: die) but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye (it is going to happen that quickly) at the last trumpet, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we (the living) will be changed. For the corruptible (the dead) must put on incorruption and the mortal must put on immortality; then will be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory"
1 Corinthians 15:51-54

Here it is again. The dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible and those of us who will be alive at the time that this occurs will be changed from mortal to immortal by the power of GOD. We will be given bodies like Jesus had after He was raised from the dead. (Philippians 3:21) Now this amazing event may have been a mystery to the people that Paul wrote these words to in the first century, but it is not a mystery anymore.

You may ask: "When will this event take place?" It will happen before the Day of Wrath begins because it has also been revealed that "Jesus has delivered us from the wrath to come." (1 Thessalonians 1:10 & Romans 5:9-11). Another question... "What is the day of wrath?" It is a time when judgment will be executed on the unbelieving world (see Revelation chapters 6-20). Why? Because GOD, seeing this day coming, has been calling out to mankind to receive HIS generous offer of salvation for centuries. It is not HIS will that anyone perish but that all would be saved. Salvation through faith in Christ has been proclaimed all over the world. Anyone left behind to experience the coming judgment, which GOD gave HIS utmost to save them from, (John 3:16) will have been left behind by their own choice. Perhaps they thought that religion would save them. Or maybe they chose to rely upon their own "goodness" or "righteousness" to gain access into Heaven. What ever the case may be, one thing is for sure, they rejected salvation through Christ and went their own way. On the other hand, those experiencing the Rapture will be people from all different religions, nationalities, cultures, races and beliefs. What they all will have in common though, is that at one time in their lives, they faced the fact that they were sinners and, in a moment of humility, accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. Simply put, they bowed the knee to Jesus. Now there are also those who recognize that they are sinners but choose to live in and die in sin rather than to accept deliverance from sin and it's consequences, the second death being the final consequence of sin. (Revelation 20:15) But I am writing this to those who believe in happy endings. Jesus Christ is that happy ending.

For God made him (Jesus) who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
2 Corinthians 5:21

There is no other name under heaven given by which a man or woman can be saved except Jesus Christ. He Himself declared:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
John 14:6

Jesus is the promised Messiah sent by GOD to take away the sins of the world the savior of the Jew and of the Gentile (non Jew). But if He is not recognized as the savior in your life, your sin will remain and that sin will be judged. But those of us who have accepted GOD's gracious pardon through faith in Christ, have passed from death to life. We have a true hope. And this "Hope" is the "Rapture".