Jesus is Coming, Perhaps Today!

“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.”

I Thessalonians 4:16

Growing up in the city of Rochester, New York my family lived, for a time, in my maternal grandparent’s home.

 Two doors down from us was a black family whose dad worked a day job but was also a Pastor

 of a store front church.

 I vividly remember a bumper sticker on their car that declared:

 “JESUS IS COMING PERHAPS TODAY”.

At the time that statement just seemed so foreign to me.

 I used to think to myself: "I wonder what it means, didn’t He already come to earth?”

You see I knew well the story of his life, death, even his resurrection but his return seemed to be a point that was never made with the same importance or perhaps just not the same impact on me.

Fast forward forty or fifty years in my life to a message I heard not too long ago.

The speaker made some comments as part of his bigger message that he felt strongly at the beginning of this year, unlike any other time in his walk with God, that this really could be the year that Jesus returns.

As I considered that point it got me to thinking that we, as believers, so often lose sight of the fact that, as the bumper sticker said so many years ago and as His word tells us so assuredly, Jesus is coming back.

What if it was today?

How would that change your schedule if you knew, at an appointed time, He was returning?

I know we have all been challenged with this thought before.

At least I have.

But maybe it’s time to re-consider the differences it would make in my life and your life if we were to daily consider that this could be the day.

Too often we go off on, what I would label as ‘theological tangent reasons’ to excuse away why it wouldn’t or couldn’t be so.

Let me give you something to consider today.

Take a moment and read I Thessalonians 5:1-11The question for us becomes: If His word is true (and we know it is!) how does it impact my life – or even more specifically – how does it impact my day today?

Suppose today – the day you are reading this article – is the day of His return?

How would your plans change?

What sin that you have been hiding would you turn from and truly repent of?

What promise to pray that you have made countless times in the past to someone would you finally keep? How fervent and urgent would those prayers be if you knew Jesus was returning in just a few hours?

How radically would your priorities shift?

What carried great importance in your life earlier in the day that would now seem so irrelevant?

Self examination is sometimes helpful.

So let’s examine our spiritual lives today in light of this thought:

Jesus is coming; perhaps today!