Tuesday 2 May 2017

May 2: Matthew 24:42-46

Key Verse: Matthew 24:42
Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.

Devotion:
Through all of His promises we can clearly see Christ has kept all that He has promised; hence all of His promises about His return must be true as well. Our only problem is we do not know when He is going to return! We do not know whether it will be in 1 minute or a thousand years, never mind the time or date. We can get a pretty good idea things will continue to get worse until such time as He does return. We can get a pretty good idea of the things which will happen because many of these are written down for us. The one thing we know is we ought to be ready for that return...

If you organised a meeting with someone to talk about something which is going on in your life or work, would it not be prudent to be ready and waiting for that meeting at the appointed time? What use would organising the meeting be if you are going to turn up after the meeting has been held already? But if we do not know the exact time for the meeting, then simply being prepared so you can get called at a moment’s notice would be a good idea.

God does not want to wait for the most awkward moment in everyone's lives before He says, “time's up”. He does not want everyone to be at their worst just before He enters the room. He would rather we are ready and doing the things which He wants us to when He does return. His return is described as being like a thief in the night because it is our nature that is letting us down. We do lose focus on things when they do not “happen” according to our own time-line. We do get lax and lazy when things don't seem to happen the way we think they should be happening. By our very nature, we are letting ourselves down and that is why the stark warning. If we want to be ready, we have to make sure we continue to do the things He has asked us to do and to continue to expect His imminent return.

Points to Ponder:
Do you get caught out when people suddenly turn up on your doorstep?

What do you think you will be doing when Christ returns?