42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43 But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44 For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”
Being alert is the catch word of discipleship. Following Christ is not for those who desire to meander through life in carefree leisure. Yes, there is rest, as Jesus said in Matt 10:28-30. That restfulness of inner spirit and freedom from the endless striving under the weight of sin, gives a solid foundation for carrying on the work of the Lord—and that means being alert. Our task as Christians is just like Jesus’, namely, “… to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). Alertness is a prime pre-requisite.
The first order of alertness is to be ready for the Lord’s return. He is coming back at any time, with the suddenness of a thief in the night breaking into your home. This story resonates on the face of it. For the average person, if he knew the exact time a thief would come, he could relax the rest of the time, and carry on without fear of surprise or loss. By application, if we knew the exact timetable for the return of Christ, we could simply live our lives selfishly, indulging the flesh for our own self-aggrandizement, and then clean up our lives just before He returns. However, that would be a mockery!
The only reasonable alternative is to live our lives as though Christ were returning today! Thirty years ago there was much anticipation of Christ’s return. Many churches, conferences and books focused on end-times prophecy—so much so, that there has been a reaction in many evangelical circles today away from prophetic teaching. The thinking now goes, “Why focus on the future and be of little use to the present. We need to concern ourselves, rather, with social justice issues and living missionally. While there is some truth to this, the pendulum can swing to the extreme in either direction. We need both—to live with the anticipation that Christ could be returning at any time, and also to be about “our Father’s business.” That awareness provides motivation. Without it, we fall into moralistic living, as though Jesus were just a moral lawgiver in place of a ritualistic lawgiver. In reality, He is the spiritual lawgiver, and He will come back. We need to be ready by living His life now!
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).
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