Look Up!

I'm taking this devotional straight from my Sunday School workbook. This workbook is about the prophesies that have yet to be fulfilled from the Bible. It talks about the Rapture and the fact that we are living in the days when Christ will return. As I was watching the news last night, I saw a blurb on the Chilean earthquake. My friend and I started talking about the prophesy of the end of days and we are both well aware that the Bible says that God will send earthquakes in the time before the Rapture. As we talked I found that I am not really looking forward to Jesus coming back and taking us home to Heaven. Well... that's not exactly right. I am excited about that part, but I'm scared about the fact of when He will actually come. I worry that I won't have had time to experience life in the ways that I want to. I wonder if I will have time to graduate from college. Will I find the love of my life? Will I have time to get married and have children? Will I get to have and teach my own classroom before He comes back? Then I opened my workbook and found this... article, so to say. It's something that I really need to think about, and I'm sure that it's something that others need to read too.


When my mom was a little girl, she walked to and from school every day with her brother. And every day on the way home she would stare intently at the sky. "Watch where you're going!" her older brother scolded her as she tripped on the sidewalk and stumbled into him, interrupting her gaze at the clouds. "I'm trying to be the first one to see Jesus when He comes back!" she explained to him. Excitement sparkled in her eyes as she told him of how magnificent and glorious the sky would be when her Savior returned to take her to Heaven.
Why is it so easy for a young child to simply look up without allowing other things to crowd her mind and cloud her excitement? How are children so unafraid to live in faith about the return of Christ? As we get older, thoughts of anticipation and excitement for eternity are easily strangled by fear or other idols in our lives. Instead of looking up, hoping to see Christ bursting forth, we are anxious about future events, or we push thoughts of Christ's return aside.
I have often shivered in fear when I read of future things. It is hard to even imagine what will occur. It is hard to understand anything different than what I know here on earth. It is easy to want to experience more on earth and to try and tell God what His plans should be, hoping that He will listen to me. "God, wait until I graduate from high school. Wait until I finish college. Wait until I start a career and a marriage. God, just wait until I can experience the joy of children. Wait until I'm ready for You to come."
But will there ever really be a time when you or I don't have something else we want to do? Will there ever be a time when we say, "Ok, God, I've checked off everything on my list. You can come now"? I must be brought back to the reality that God is not bound by time, and Christ's return is more important and exciting than anything I will ever experience or even imagine here on earth.
Until I submissively look to God change my heart, my heart will never naturally long for His return. The Bible talks about setting "your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Collossians 3:2). Luke 12:34 tells me that where my treasure is, my heart will also be. When I am wishing for anything other than to be with my Savior, it proves that my treasure is here on earth, and not in Heaven. Instead of desiring the awesomeness of what it will be like to worship God in Heaven, I simply desire moths and rust and everything that will not last. I am seeking happiness and joy in my circumstances here on earth, which is only dirt, instead of eternal happiness and complete joy with my Savior?
My thoughts and words reveal that I, like many Christians, have not embraced the reality that Christ promises to return at any moment. For centuries, Christians have lost their excitement for Christ's return, turning their eyes upon earthly things for temporal satisfaction. Many Christians expected Christ to return shortly after He ascended to Heaven, but when His return was delayed, many scoffed in unbelief, "walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming?" (2 Peter 3:3-4). In Peter's second letter to the church, he reminded Christians that Christ has promised to return "as a thief in the night" (2 Peter 3:10), and admonished Christians to live every day as if Christ would come at any moment. Peter's encouragement to the church to change its thinking and way of living also applies to us today.
Peter explained that in order to be ready for the return of Christ, we must live holy and godly lives. Our daily behavior and actions must be motivated by the possibility of Christ returning at any moment. If we truly believe that He could come today, then we will behave in a way that pleases Him. And if we are striving to live a life characterized by holiness through His power, we will desire to worship Him with an attitude of reverence and respect. Our fearful shivers of the events to the end times will turn into praise to our Almighty God, Whose power will be revealed at His coming!
We will be ready for Christ's return not only by living holy and godly lives, but also by looking for His return. Just as God promises us of Christ's return, He also promises us that He will place His wrath upon those who have not repented and put their trust in Him (2 Peter 3:10-12). We know through His Word that God is "longsuffering not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). But we also know that not everyone will repent and put his or her trust in Jesus alone for salvation. It is sobering to think that some of my friends, family, or neighbors will experience God's wrath. And it is convincing that I often think that I'm too busy or too afraid to warn them of their coming judgment.
When I begin to ponder how beautiful, magnificent, and glorious it will be when Christ returns to take me home, my thoughts of fear and anxiety about the coming events begin to melt away. But until my life begins to reflect Him instead of desiring to accomplish my "checklist" here on earth, I will not be ready and looking for His return.
In order to be ready and to look for Christ's return, we must be willing to change. Having the desire to graduate high school, to go college, start a career and a marriage is not sinful in and of itself. But when those desires alone are what we seek after and live for and are not motivated by the desire to glorify God--the reason for our existence--they are only selfishness rooted in a prideful spirit.
So take a step back and look up with the eyes of a child. Does your life reflect holiness and godliness? Do you desire things of Heaven or things or earth? Can you truly say today, "I want to be the first one to see Jesus return"?
By Holly Leeper



I know that this is something that I need to work on in my life. I should be so filled with excitement that about Jesus' return that I shouldn't be able to contain myself! This is my God and my Savior who is coming back to take me to my eternal home. There should be nothing that I should look forward to more.

God Bless,
Taylor