A Little Threat Can Brighten Your Day

A Little Threat Can Brighten Your Day

2 Thessalonians 2:16& 17

16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, 

17 comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.

   I am old enough to remember the cold war.  I remember in elementary school being taught to climb under our desks if we see a very bright light in the sky.  We were to put our knees together and place our faces tight against them until the all clear was sounded, or, what we were never told, the explosion came and incinerated us.  This was no joke!  People really had an honest fear about “the end of the world.”  As time went on, we were taught that the threat was less because we were engaged in a condition where we were in a state of “mutually assured destruction” with our opponents.  The policy was called the MAD policy, one government acronym that I thought was especially appropriate.  I also remember many news people and many pastors alike preaching a “doom and gloom” future for us.  We grew up with a severe lack of hope in our lives.   

   I have watched the news over the last couple of weeks and noticed that the threat of the end of the world is being greeted with a lot of scorn and a lot of fear, depending on who you listen to.  I’ve read the Bible and formed my own opinion about Christ’s return and the timing of this great event.  I can state a few facts about this I truly believe and have some aspects of this I really don’t have a firm belief, or at least a firm opinion, of.

   I believe with my whole heart that Christ will return for His church, of which I am a part.  I believe He will call us away to be with Him and we will be changed bodily and spiritually to allow us to interact with Him in His Deified state.  Those are the two items about His return that concern me.  The Bible assures me of those two points and addresses my concerns.  Everything else about Christ’s return and when the “end of the world” will happen do not.  When He will return is not a concern of mine and I don’t try to set dates.  I’m really not critical of anyone trying, but I think it’s an effort in futility to try.  So I guess the best way to put this in simple terms is to say that in a “glass-half-empty” world, my glass is half full. Whether He returns while I am alive or after I am dead will not change my destiny.  I trust Christ will return and He will bring me to live with Him in glory.  This glorious hope is the hope I believe in. 

   I love the message in Psalms 119:49.  "Remember your word unto your servant, In which you have caused me to hope."  The word of hope that we are to trust has to come from God Himself.  God would not invite us to hope in His Word in order to disappoint us.  Surely God has caused us to hope so that we might be encouraged and established.  When we have God's Word and a well-grounded hope, we will not end up disillusioned or disappointed.

   I have heard it said that we should work like He’s coming back today and live like He’s not coming in our lifetime.  (Or something like that, I may have the words a little off.)  But the point is to witness to the unsaved like there’s no tomorrow.  If Christ returns today, which of your loved ones will He leave behind?  Looking at salvation through the lens of Christ’s return should help you develop a little urgency to your witnessing.  Your unsaved loved one does not have “all the time in the world” to decide.  They might only have today. 

Stephen Cram                       May 22, 2011                            Colossians 2:8

Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.  Colossians 2:8