Help! Love, MOM

My last post before 2 days ago was in June, exactly 30 days to the day.

I had an unplanned break from blogging, which started in earnest on the night my little area of NYC experienced an hours long power outage.

I’m challenging myself to post daily for 10 days to make up for the entries that I missed.

What I discovered during an unwelcome and completely disrespectful disruption in my electrical service was that, at best, I was only partially prepared for it.

What I had on hand included:

• Access to a friend who was willing to let me come over;
• Flashlights and batteries;
• Cold packs; and,
• Water (1 full and 1 partial big box cases)
• 1 almost fully charged cell phone and a
• My car – I can’t remember how much gas I had at the time

In the moment, I was thankful, sooooo very thankful that I had some items set aside in my home. My flashlights and that water were everything! I knew that even with my meager supplies, God would help me. The situation would, somehow, work in my favor.

I also realized that, when emergency strikes, you’re either prepared or you’re not.

Which, then, made me reflect on the promised future return of the Lord Jesus.

While both the Old and New Testaments testify to Jesus’s return, these scriptures are found in the New Testament.

“Look, he is coming with the clouds,”
    and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;
    and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen.
Revelation 1:7

There is also:

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NIV

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, 
and the dead in Christ will rise first. 

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 

Finally, please consider:

1 Corinthians 15:50-52 NIV

I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

My dear readers, the Bible is clear.

As the Church has said for hundreds of years: we live between the 2 advents (or the 2 comings) of Christ.

Jesus came to the earth as a baby once. One day He is coming again to catch away His prepared ones. No, not the ones with flashlights and water and ice packs, but the ones who trust Him with their eternity.

Jesus is coming for the ones who say plainly because they know poignantly that no matter how they try and what they do, they are sinners in dire and definite need of rescue. Jesus is coming again for those who call on Him and ask for this deliverance.

Jesus is coming again for the ones who say that they KNOW that there is a God and that they themselves are not God and that Jesus is this God for Whom they have searched.

Jesus is coming for the ones who know that one day they must give an account of their lives to the true and living God, their Creator.

Jesus is coming again for the ones who have doubts and serious questions about things like

~like the age of the earth and abortion rights, and

~why suffering has stalked your family,

and will yet trust that Jesus will make the dark, light.

These doubting brothers and sisters believe that holding on to Jesus, even while wrestling with doubts, is more powerful and eternally important than holding on to doubts and walking away from Jesus.

Jesus is coming again for the ones who look for and long for and love His appearing.

I confess to you that, most of the time, I am not living with a front-of-mind view of the return of the Lord.

However, hanging out in the hot dark a few Mondays ago reminded me, “Be ready, Lady. Jesus is coming. Live more like it.”

Sometimes, I get weary of myself: my faults, my failures, my setbacks, my selfishness and disobedience, and the tedious cycle of progress and regress in my Christian disciplines is extremely upsetting.

I am reminded that my salvation is not dependant on my righteous works but on the atoning work of Christ on Calvary.

HOWEVER, one proof that I truly have trusted Christ is a life of good works.

Lately, I have not heard much talking, teaching, and preaching about the return of the LORD, but, the scriptures are clear: Jesus is coming back again!

Speaking powerfully into that silence is, this book Come, Lord Jesus by John Piper, this song by Stephen McWhirter, and this remake of that song by CeCe Winans, titled, Come, Jesus, Come.

Are you prepared?

Get Ready! Be Ready!

xoxoKimberly