I’ve been getting ready for Christmas deliveries: shoveling the sidewalk, pulling back the curtains so the UPS, FedEx, or USPS driver knows I’m home, getting dressed a little bit earlier so I can answer the door, checking email updates, tracking packages, etc. etc. etc.
And I’ve been watching for porch pirates. Those pesky thieves that want to steal what doesn’t belong to them.
But there is something else, something much more important you and I need to be ready for, watching and waiting with eager anticipation and really, a soul-stirring urgency:
Jesus Christ is coming soon. (Revelation 22:20.)
As we edge closer to the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth as that babe in a manger some two thousand years ago, we need to look forward to His return.
ANY. DAY. NOW.
It’s going to happen and no one can predict the day or the hour. (Matthew 24:36, Luke 12:40.)
If you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, Satan would love to steal the gift of your salvation through Jesus Christ by lying to you, telling you it’s not for you or you’ve sinned too much or you’re not perfect enough.
Or maybe Satan is telling you there’s time to do that later, that you’ve got time to make things right with God.
But what if you don’t have more time?
Jesus came for you. He died for you. All you have to do is accept Him and believe.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:16-18 NIV.)
Satan wants to destroy all hope. He wants to steal the knowledge that Jesus Christ is returning to take us home, that God has not forgotten or abandoned His children. Satan tries to take all of this from us by distracting us, especially during the Christmas season.
The enemy wants to dilute our faith and focus. He wants to keep us so busy buying and shopping and planning and running around to the point of exhaustion and depression and the sense that something is just “off.” Like the nostalgia of the “good old Christmas days” is gone or has grown stale.
Perhaps what has grown stale is the reality that there is only one God and we are either choosing Him or evil chooses us by default.
You and I…we can’t stand in the middle, trying to please people and hoping to please God somehow. When we do that, we’re putting people and their opinions above God. That, my friend, is idolatry.
We either stand with God or fall with the enemy.
Are you ready, my friends?
“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10: 9-10 NIV.)
(Photo from Pexels.com.)
Training for Eternity 