Love at First Sight

Recently, my mind has meditated much on the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ; the scripture tells us that many will love His appearance (2 Tim 4:8). On the other hand, we are told that the world will grieve at His coming for fear of punishment (Rev 1:7). Regardless of what anyone will think about His return, all people seem curious regarding future events.

Regarding this curiosity with the 2^nd Advent and eternity, I’ve always found Acts 1:6-7 to be of interest. We see Jesus’ closest disciples, the 12 (minus Judas), with Him. He is about to ascend into heaven and they ask, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;” Jesus then goes on to give them a job, that is the great commission (1:8). I like to think Jesus meant, do not worry about the timing of future events, but get busy with the work I gave you.

Rather than work, curiosity seems to get the best of a lot of us, just now I typed a Google search for “2^nd coming” just to see what would pop up. In two seconds I was reading, “the sign of the Son of Man has appeared in the sky and was discovered by NASA on January 6, 2010.”[1] This is a statement of desperate curiosity; one where clues for Jesus’ coming are in everything, even in images burned onto pancakes. By the way, their statement is absolute nonsense, not to mention a misuse of Matt 24:30. The sign in the sky will be Jesus Himself.

I wonder what fuels our curiosity, a curiosity so powerful that even some Christians misread and misuse God’s word, forgetting that Jesus said the timing of His coming is not for us to know. What motivates this? Do we think that we can better prepare ourselves? Or perhaps, are we just plain tired of waiting? This seems to be normal among many believers. We are like the child who feels as though five minutes is an hour when he is waiting for something special.

Now, as we anticipate the 2^nd coming, let us draw our attention toward the end of Paul’s letter where he focuses on the 2^nd coming as he wraps up in prayer:

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.” (1 Thess 5:23-24).

The Apostle wrote this letter to a young church, which was famous for its faith, hope and love. Yet, he asks God that they would be blameless at the coming of their Groom, the Lord Jesus.

His prayer includes two actions (v 23). The first is sanctification or becoming holy. Moreover, this sanctification is to set us apart completely, sanctification refuses to stop half way or so he prays. It is thorough. This is our hope.

The second is preservation; this is the guarding of our thorough holiness. His prayer was that God would keep them blameless so that they would be able to stand before Him without shame or guilt.[2] It was not enough to for him to stop at entire sanctification, but the hope was for a lasting holiness of their spirits and souls and bodies.

This prayer sounds impossible, who can attain such a level? Yes, we are excited at the coming of Christ but it also can produce fear. I imagine that the grief at Jesus’ return will be quite a scene. But will we who are supposed to love His appearing be filled with guilt?

The answer is implied in the next verse which reads, “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (v 24). Here we are drawn back into v 23 realizing that God Himself completes the two actions. The Spirit is the one who sanctifies us and He is the one who keeps us blameless. This is the very work of God—not man. 

Further, God our Savior is faithful (v 24) and He will do this work, hence, fulfilling our hope and the Apostle’s prayer. Therefore, we worry not and we don’t need clues on the timing of future events. We strive to only trust Him and only serve Him. And we, like Paul, look forward to a crown of righteousness. Finally, I fully expect that at the moment of His appearing we will be in love, not grief. For now, let us look for ways to cooperate with the two-fold work of the Spirit within us. I pray that we would not grieve Him by harboring sins but that we might be free of those things and desire to please Him. That we might be delighted to come to worship Him on Sundays with the body, that we would long for quiet time with Christ in prayer and that we would posses such a conviction of His faithfulness that we might trust Him more to do this amazing work within each of us.

“In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim 4:8).

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[1] If you would like to read this for yourself, go to: http://www.cynet.com/Jesus/  Furthermore, there is a host of false claims out there, this year the date setters have set 12/21/12 as the date for a great transformative event, i.e. doomsday. This based on an ancient calendar, certainly not the mind of the Father. 

[2] Gene L. Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 269.