Thursday, 7/25/19 – Discipleship: The Soon Return of Christ

The Soon Return of Christ

Yesterday’s blog closed citing Heb. 9:27, 28

“And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him.”

We have been looking at our essential need to turn from sin and turn to Christ… to acknowledge the evil within us, agree with God’s judgment upon it, to covenant before God to shun it by the cooperation of our will with His enabling power and grace, and to willfully desire Him above all earthly and fleshly allures…. In short, to repent.

The certainty of our death and of the judgment to follow should sober our thinking to see the priority of repentance! And our days may be shorter than we think.

Jesus is coming back! He is not coming to receive our repentance; by then the books will be closed… the harvest past… the summer ended (cf Jer. 8:20). He is coming to retrieve His own. “Now,” not then, “is the day of salvation.” (c.f. 2 Cor. 6:2).a

Note again the words, “He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for Him.” (Heb. 9:28).

Now is not the time for playing games with God. As someone recently posted to Facebook:

“Some of y’all be playing hide & seek with Jesus…
And pretty soon He’s gonna say: READY OR NOT, HERE I COME!!!”

There is no place you can hide from God. Whether by your death or by His return you will be found, and found out.

C.S. Lewis writes, “There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (‘Man’s search for God’!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us!” – C.S. Lewis, Miracles

But find us He will. After all, if you are “playing hide & seek with Jesus” you are playing in His backyard.

As David writes,

“I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave,[a] you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.” (Ps. 139:7-12 (NLT)

Do these words strike comfort or dread in your soul? Do you rejoice, or must you repent. Whichever it is, I urge you to do it today!

Press on…