Monday February 26, 2024
Always Be Ready
By Jenny Pfister
The Bible clearly teaches that if we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ will keep His promise to come back and get us, then we should be looking for Him on a daily basis. Looking means we should be waiting in fervent anticipation, like one who is preparing to go on a long trip…packed and ready to leave at any moment.
If you’re honest with yourself, this is the hard part. We live in a day and age that has never seen its like in terms of temptation and lasciviousness. No other generation has been as tempted to do wrong as we have been, and are being, on a daily basis.
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11-13 NKJV)
That said, God commands us to use the ‘ blessed hope’ of His return as a reason and a motivation to live as cleanly as we possibly can. We dearly want to be found faithful and living right when He comes back to gets us to meet Him in the clouds. Live as cleanly as you can, and live as rightly before the Lord as you can.
So you see that the Blessed Hope is a means by which God uses to prepare us and purify us as we wait. It is not simply a “get out of jail free card;” it is a refining tool of the Lord to make and keep us ready on a daily basis. After all, death is a reality for over 250,000 people a day, every day, around the world, with lots of them being Bible-believing Christians.
Don’t you think that to be “ready at any moment” is a pretty good idea? Having the blessed hope in our lives pushes us towards readiness and away from stagnation and slothfulness in our spiritual walk with the Lord Jesus. Fervency for His return should be the hallmark and high-mark of our hope. (See WORD WISDOM for a deeper study of fervency)
God knows that we are redeemed sinners who still have to live every day in unredeemed bodies of flesh. He knows that we will still commit sin. So He gives us verses like these to cling to…to keep us focused.
The Bible teaches us that Jesus will ‘never leave us or forsake us’ after we have been saved. That’s a promise you can hang your eternal destiny on. His return for His church to take us out before the Tribulation is also another precious promise you may trust with all your heart.
He said He would come get us…and He will. Always be ready….this is our BLESSED HOPE. We are to constantly be looking for His coming. The Greek word for “looking” (prosdechomai) means, “motion or direction toward; a deliberate, ready reception; to accept favorably; to receive one into intercourse; to give access to oneself or receive to oneself.” The term was often used of welcoming honored guests and meeting their needs with special attention and kindness. This great Greek verb describes one who is waiting for something with a sense of expectancy. Does this verb typify your life?
Prosdechomai is in the present tense which calls for our looking to be our lifestyle! Are you looking for Him? If you are looking at the visible things, the temporal things of this passing world, you can be sure that your looking for Him will be a bit lacking!
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16-18 NKJV)
As an aside, the only way we can be continually looking for Jesus is by relying on the filling and empowering of the Spirit of Jesus Whose role is to glorify the Son (Jn.16:14)! We need more men like G. Campbell Morgan (British evangelist, preacher and a leading Bible scholar) who said, “I never begin my work in the morning without thinking that perhaps He may interrupt my work and begin His own. I am not looking for death, I am looking for Him.”
Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved (to breathe after) His appearing. (2 Tim. 4:8)
How would my daily choices change if I lived by “vertical” vision? I believe it would change everything! So, take a good look at what and Who is about to come!
