Getting Ready

Reading in the Scriptures this morning Jesus' charge to His followers to be ready for His return. There are a number of different ways He illustrates the need to be ready, but each one points to the tendency of all of us to get lazy, apathetic, disinterested, disconnected.

The disciples ask in Matthew 24 about the things they should look for to signal the approach of the time when Jerusalem will be destroyed. Jesus tells them some specifics, but also the severity of the situation that will arise. They will be in mortal danger. Yikes, what a message. I am sure it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

But Jesus doesn't stop there. He takes the opportunity, through Matthew's weaving of his narrative, to tell of an even greater event, one that is still in the future, even for us.

And one thing stands out to me. If we are aware of the event coming, we can be ready. We can be watching, anticipating what will happen, and when it does we will be able to say, "I told you so." (Not that "I told you so" will be important at that moment.)

We can be ready. We can live lives anticipating Jesus' return, Judgment Day, and full restoration of relationship with God. Knowing His is coming should affect every moment of our lives. We can't afford to fall asleep at the wheel. We need to prepare.

As we get ready to head to Okinawa there are many details, small things that need to be handled. We obtained International Driver's Licenses. We have our passports. We have our TSAPrecheck Global Access Cards. We have our plane tickets. We have someone to drive us to the airport at 5AM (Thanks, Craig). We have someone to pick us up there in Okinawa. We have all the medications we need for the three months. We could go on and on.

But we also prepared the "just in case" things. Our wills are in place. We have talked over the details with our children, shown them where the important documents can be found, given them the combination to the safe and important passwords.

We have said "I love you."

We know Okinawa is approaching. We know Jesus is returning. We are preparing for  both.

How are your preparations going?

Motivation

1 John 3:3

          As a boy I liked to play with cars, as most kids do from time to time. You could put yourself in the car and drive up the tallest mountains (the couch) or across the desert (the coffee table). You could be in a sports car or in a battle tank. You could be out with your spouse and kids going on vacation, or at the racetrack competing for the First Place trophy. And it all happened right in your living room.

          One of the important tasks of being a parent is to figure out whether your child is intrinsically or extrinsically motivated. Do they respond better to pressure from inside themselves or from pressure from the outside? Do you help them discover what they really want to do or do you give them goals of your choosing?

          Intrinsically motivated people don’t need the stars on their papers at school or the winning ribbon in the race. They don’t need the pat on the back to keep them going. They have a drive that resides inside themselves that drives them forward. Once they have a project, they just do it. Their drive to accomplish rises up from within them.

          Extrinsically motivated people thrive on those external rewards and directions. They want the “kickoff” event and the pep rallies. They like quarterly goals and weekly reports. These things keep them moving forward. They need the pressure that someone else places on them to keep them moving.

          As a parent it is important to know what drives your kids so you know how to help them achieve goals and move forward.

          As Jesus followers we have reasons to move forward. John gives us both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for obedience. We are now His children (intrinsic), and He is returning and fully revealing the truth (extrinsic). And John draws on both of these as he points out the hope we have in Him.

          John tells us that everyone who knows they are His child and who will someday be changed and be like Him, everyone who has this hope must do something. It makes no difference whether we are responding to this new identity we have as His child (intrinsic) or whether the celebration at His coming (extrinsic) drives us to purity. We all need to take responsibility for our conduct in this world. What we do needs to reflect His character and He is pure.

          This is where some people make excuses. They define purity in a way that allows them to continue to do what they know they shouldn’t be doing. You can usually tell by the urgency and anger that drives the defense of the action. They talk about being “born this way” or narrow cultural constraints. They talk about other people at other times or in other places having different practices. Or they speak the excuse of all excuses, “I’m not hurting anyone.”

          We need to be pure, just as He is pure. No excuses. When we sin, repent and start walking again toward purity.

Confident and Unashamed

1 John 2:28

          If you have ever been on a job interview, confidence is one thing you can’t have too much of, unless your confidence comes off as arrogance or aloofness. Unless you are running for political office and then it seems that you can’t get enough. But what exactly is confidence?

          Confidence is the feeling that you can do something. Confidence usually builds over time as you do tasks successfully. So confidence has some substance. It represents your past successes applied to a potential future action. And we all need some confidence when facing future challenges.

          In our text John tells us that we can have confidence when Jesus returns if we stay connected to Him rather than following a different course. The original audience of this letter was in danger of turning away from the freedom we have in Christ. They were hearing a teaching that downgraded Jesus to less than fully God and fully man. The people teaching this had been part of their fellowship, but had departed when they began their errant teaching.

          But the readers are challenged to continue in Jesus. It is not automatic. There is a choice to remain in Christ. And if we stay true to the faith then confidence is one of the byproducts. This isn’t confidence to high wire walk across Niagara Falls. This is confidence that our eternal destiny is secure. It is focused confidence. It is important confidence because it settles the death question once and for all. And when we have confidence concerning death, is there anything else that can bring us fear?

          But there is something else that continuing in Jesus brings. John says that we may have confidence and be unashamed. Shame is one of the most powerful emotions. Shame and fear drive most interactions that we humans have. When couples fight, it is fear and shame that drive the train. The outward manifestations of anger only cover up the real feelings. Fear and shame are so difficult to deal with that we hide them under our anger, nagging, withdrawing or shutting down.

          John tells us that if we stay true to the faith they received, we will be able to stand before Jesus without shame. The sin that causes us to hang our heads won’t drag us down at that moment. We will recognize Him and the grace He brings and stand tall. We get this unashamed posture not because of anything we have done. It is given to us because Jesus already bore the shame for our sin in His death. He was naked when it was our nakedness that was showing.

          And one more thing! Jesus is coming back. This is not some late addition to the faith. Jesus told us about it. The prophets of the Old Testament told us about it. And John does as well. He is going to return and establish His authority in a real and visible way. There will be no doubt about who is in charge. Jesus will be.

          And when Jesus comes in all His glory and demonstrates His power, we can be confident and without shame because we stand in Him.

Personal, Visible, Bodily

Mark 13:26-27

      Have you noticed the rise of ‘Tele’ this and that. Telemarketing has been around for years. You remember, those annoying phone calls around dinner time. I am so glad that they started the “Do Not Call” Register. Those calls have almost stopped for me. But that isn’t the only ‘Tele’ around.

      You can attend a teleconference. You sign up, then at the appropriate time you click the link on your computer and presto, you are attending a conference. You can watch, listen, and even interact with other participants. This saves time and money. You can get continuing education credits for professional credentialing without having to take large amounts of time away from your practice.

      You can go to a telemeeting. You can meet with staff across many states, or even across the globe. It provides at least some level of connection that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. Everyone is sitting around a virtual conference table. Computer screens can be shared so that everyone is able to see exactly what is being discussed. Documents can be sent back and forth, revised and edited.

      You can telecommute. You work from home, rather than having to get in your car and travel to an office, you connect to your work from home, usually by computer and phone. You are on the clock, and your productivity is checked. You still do your normal work, but you can do it in shorts and T-shirt.

      Telemedicine is on the rise. Meet your doctor without having to leave the house. They are even experimenting with doing some laparoscopic surgeries this way. The doctor is one hospital and the patient is in another. The patient is prepped and ready. They are placed under a remotely controlled set of laparoscopic devices. The surgeon moves the equipment and watches from their hospital while the machine does the operation on the patient at the other.

      There is one thing that will never be ‘tele’, the return of Jesus. It will be personal, visible, and bodily. We won’t see it on the evening news, or on a simulcast from around the world. Jesus will actually return in the same way He left earth. He was actually taken up into the clouds as His disciples watched, and He will actually return this same way.

      There will be witnesses of this future event. Not everyone everywhere will see Jesus return in power and great glory. It will be localized. But people on the ground in that place will see Him return. It won’t be a vision. It won’t be seen only by a select few, a chosen set of true believers. It won’t happen as the result of a prayer meeting or a secret conclave. It won’t be seen appearing on a wall or in a potato chip.

      I know it won’t be a somewhat secret event because it comes in two parts. The first part is the personal, visible, bodily return of Jesus. The second part is the sending of the angels and their gathering of God’s people from across the globe and from eternity. Wherever God’s people are, they will be gathered from that place. When the angels are sent they will gather. They won’t take their time and sit around for years waiting. They will accomplish their mission. The time for waiting is over. Those who have responded in faith to the Good News will be gathered.

      Jesus returns and gathers His own. The two are connected and simultaneous. This event is often called the Rapture. The question is not if this happens, but when. This is the same question the disciples asked. When? I don’t know, but I do know we must be ready, watching, prepared, praying.

Day 197

Hope in Christ's return

1 Thessalonians 5

Key Verses: 4, 8, 14, 16-18, 19-22

There is a popular notion spinning in Christian circles that we as Jesus-followers will be surprised when Jesus returns. Jesus will come suddenly, but it will not be a surprise, since we know He is coming and we are waiting for it. Just like a woman in labor. She might not know the exact moment of the upcoming birth, but she knows it is coming. She is not surprised when she hears those first cries of life. So too, we know Jesus is going to return. When the trumpet sounds, we will know exactly what it is.

But for those who don’t know Christ and who are living their lives without an active knowledge of His coming, it will be sudden, unexpected, life altering. They are walking in darkness, asleep to the Truth. They are unaware or uncaring of the consequences of their everyday actions.

We must live our lives differently than they do, since we know Christ is returning. We need to keep our senses sharp so as not to live in a way that dishonors Christ. Paul speaks of the others as being drunk. We don’t know if this was literal drunkenness, or whether Paul was using drunkenness as a picture of being unaware of one’s surroundings and responsibilities. We need to be sober. This means not under the influence of alcohol to the point of disconnection, but also anything else that might pull us off focus.

Jesus repeatedly said we need to watch for His return. As a guard on night patrol on a Forward Operating Base in a combat zone must stay awake and focused or he jeopardizes not only his own life, but the lives of his comrades, so we must stay awake in our spiritual watching. We can’t afford to let the Enemy get past our perimeter, infiltrating our defenses, able to attack from within.

Paul closes out this book by giving us a glimpse of what sober living looks like. He does this by showing what it is not, and by what it is. We need to be in the work of warning, encouraging, helping and patience. This is our work toward outsiders and those who are stumbling.

Our lives need to be filled with rejoicing, prayer and thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but I get tired of being around people who are complaining and grumbling. I like being around rejoicers, prayers, and thankers! I like myself when I am that way. I think I need to be even more so.

Paul even includes some worship service directives. When we gather for worship, it is not to be simply an intellectual exercise, devoid of the unexpected. God wants to be present, intervening in our nice neat boxes. He wants to be vitally, energetically involved in our worship of Him. Are we willing to let Him invade our perimeter?

Day 163

Events of second coming

Matthew 24

Key Verses: 2, 8, 12-13, 14, 19, 27, 37, 44

Have you ever had to deliver bad news, really bad news? I have, and it is no fun. Jesus tells his disciples that the center of their geopolitical world is going to be destroyed. As Jewish men, their lives were connected to Jerusalem. They were required to travel there regularly in order to fulfill their religious duties.

But the disciples want to know more. They want to know when Jesus is going to lead the revolt that will reestablish David’s kingdom in Jerusalem. All the turmoil, Jesus says, is just the beginning of a process that will end in joy, but it will be painful along the way. The most vulnerable will have it the hardest. It will be worse than any natural disaster you can imagine.

And in the middle of the disaster false prophets will arise and deception will happen. Christ’s return will be fully visible. The second coming will be openly displayed. Just as you can see vultures circling in the sky, so Jesus’ return will be visible. It will cause billions of people to mourn. They will realize their rejection of Christ.

There are signs that will indicate Christ’s return in near. Those of us who are Jesus-followers are watching for those signs, and therefore will not be taken by surprise when He returns. Have you ever heard about a surprise party for you before it happened? Were you really surprised when the moment arrived? Of course not, you knew it was coming. When the door opened, you know there were people there getting ready to yell, “Surprise!” Because we know it is coming, and we are watching, Jesus’ return will not take us by surprise. But most people will be just going on with life as usual. They are not paying any attention to the signs. They are caught up in the busyness of life.

We need to be awake and aware of what is happening in our world so that we can see the signs. We have a duty to be the wise servant, awake and ready, doing the right thing at the right time. We may not know the day or hour, but if we are watching and waiting, we will not be surprised when He returns. We will be doing the things He has called us to do. We will remain faithful to Him.