Occupy Till I Come

“And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds,

and said unto them, Occupy till I come.”

Luke 19:13

 

 

Jesus spoke the words above in the context of a parable.

But listen to some words written in scripture just moments before Jesus shared the words from our text above. They are found in verse 11 of that same chapter: “While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people

thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.”

It would seem to me that Jesus was more concerned that they ‘occupy’ until His return than being ‘preoccupied’ about it.

We can be so taken up with ‘sign’ of His return that we are no longer busy doing the work of the Kingdom.

That word ‘occupy’ in the Greek literally means to ‘stay busy’.

Let’s not be guilty of idling away the hours while we await His return.

 

Two things we can be assured of –

1.     He will return.

2.     It will be at the exact time He has purposed.

 

We can and should be excited for that return.

We should look for it with great anticipation.

But we should not be so ‘preoccupied’ concerning it that we fail to ‘occupy’ till He comes!

There will be many who say “Look at this sign.” or “Surely this proves His return is very, very soon.”

I do not discount their words.

I only caution that as we listen to them we are not drawn away from the work of the Kingdom.

There is so much more fruit in ‘occupy’ than ‘preoccupied’!