The end is near! The end is near! Jesus is coming soon!
So … now what?
Most Christians have a growing sense of the imminence of Christ’s return. Global political posturing, natural catastrophes increasing in frequency and intensity, a worldwide communication network allowing for people around the world to mobilize quickly. All the signs are there.
So, what are Christians to do? Should we wring our hands in fear and anxiety? Should we strap on the sandwich boards and head out to the street corners with our megaphones? Should we soldier up and bunker down with guns and ammo and canned goods?
With the end times on our minds, but with 2025 right in front of us. How should we actually live our lives?
The bible always has interesting things to say when it comes to practical advice about the end. In 1 Thessalonians 4:18, after Paul outlines some vivid details about end times events, he concludes with, “Therefore, encourage one another with these words.” Well, that rules out the fear and hand wringing. The coming conclusion of history should be a source of hope and encouragement for us. How is that possible?
Jesus specifically addresses the practical anytime he describes apocalyptic events. There’s a reason he’s telling us these things. There’s a reason the bible doesn’t shy away from prophecies about the end times. There’s something for us to learn. A posture for us to assume.
In Mark 13, Jesus is teaching in what’s known as the Olivet Discourse. He’s approaching the cross, and he’s providing his disciples with final instructions. One of his topics is the coming fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple. But he also uses this teaching to point the end times. As he wraps up his teaching, he moves into a mini-parable. Five different times and using three different words to explain it Jesus gives his clear practical advice when it comes to our daily living as the end approaches.
Jesus urges us to live a life of readiness. Stay Awake! Be Alert! Keep Watch! Live Ready.
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake.” – Mark 13:32-36
The doorkeeper in this parable has but one “charge”. That charge is to “watch.” This means living faithfully in the present and being ready at any hour for the return of the master. This is not one job among others, it is the doorkeepers ONLY job.
Jesus’ call to “stay awake” is the final and most important word of the whole Olivet Discourse. The end is unknown and will come suddenly; so instead of trying to figure it out, live in a state of constant readiness.
Four Ways to Live a Life of Readiness This Year
1. Live a life on mission
Notice in the parable, when the master goes away he leaves his servants, “each to his own work.” Jesus leaves and then he says, “Get to work!” What is the work? It is the mission that he has placed before you. The calling that he’s given you. The people he’s put around you.
Don’t go into a bunker, go into the master’s business. Go about your days in such a way, that if he returned at any moment, he would be pleased with what you were doing. We have to embrace the idea that as Christians we are on mission in this world.
Related Read: Top Bible Chapters to Read for Spiritual Insight and Wisdom
In John 20:21, Jesus was clear, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you.” Every follower of Jesus is on mission and in motion. You have been sent by God to your specific location. Your mission field might not be over there, but maybe it’s right here. Mission is not something they do it’s something we do. As Christians we don’t send people, we are the sent people. Wherever you are, you have been sent there by God.
Which means, your presence at work, at the gym, your hobbies, your neighborhood, your table at the coffee shop; these are divine appointments arranged by God so that people might know His mercy and that they might see living proof of His presence by the way you conduct your life. When He comes back will you be about His business?
2. Live a life of personal purity.
Two things that the bible says you can be sure of about the end times; it’s definitely going to happen and there is no way to predict when it will. If you put these two truths together it becomes a tremendous force for personal integrity and purity. We must be ready “at all times.” Which means you can ask yourself a question about every behavior, in each moment, “How will this look when the irresistible light of Christ is shined upon it?”
Peter says it this way in his second epistle:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. – 2 Peter 3:10-14
God doesn’t want mankind to know exactly when the second coming will be because He wants every generation to live in expectation of it. Watching has a purifying effect, knowing that you could stand before the Lord in judgment almost any moment makes you think twice about how you are living your life.
On the other hand, not watching has the opposite effect. We become sleepy and lazy. In our original passage from Jesus, the master commanded the doorkeeper to watch for his return. He was not to sleep on the job, but to keep watching. “Sleeping” indicates moral and spiritual laxity. It is when we forget about the Lord, and focus on worldly things.
In Matthew’s version of this account, he compares the coming of Jesus to the days of Noah (Matt. 24:37). In the days of Noah, more and more people were turning from God to sin. Immorality and violence were on the rise. When Noah told the people that God’s judgment was near, they didn’t believe, and they didn’t care. The people lived as if nothing would happen to them. They did not believe that He would judge them and scorned the warning that a flood was imminent. They were so busy with earthly affairs that they didn’t bother with God. A key to living a ready life, is to live a life of personal purity.
3. Live a life of helping those in need
The second coming of Jesus will usher in God’s long awaited work of restoration in the world. Jesus told his disciples earlier in his Olivet discourse that when he returns, he will be coming in the clouds. People read that and picture him coming through the clouds or riding on the clouds. But that’s not what he says, he says coming in clouds with power and glory.
This is a clear reference to the shekinah glory of God that would show up every once in a while on earth, often shrouded in a cloud. Remember the immediacy of God’s presence was removed from the earth, from the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve made the choice to sin and to be their own God. God withdrew his immediate presence. But then his people would get glimpses, the shekinah glory would lead the Israelites in the form of a cloud through the wilderness, and show up in the Holy of Holies. So when Jesus comes in clouds, he’s bringing the shekinah back, he’s bringing the immediate presence of God back into play, and the earth will be like paradise again.
You may say, what does that have to do with helping those in need?
What is the doctrine of the second coming? It is Jesus returning for the restoration and renewal of creation which will mark the end of poverty, injustice, disease, death, and hunger. Whoever yearns for the second coming, longs for what God longs for. And so in the meantime, we work alongside him for those things. We do so with the hope of knowing that in the end that this will all be made right.
At end of Jesus’ teaching, he says Watch! The opposite of watching for the second coming is apathy about the second coming. There is an implicit warning here against NOT longing for Jesus to come back. I’m afraid this is where many American Christians find themselves. And, do you know why we don’t yearn for it? Why we’re spiritually sleepy when it comes to the second coming? It’s because we’re incredibly comfortable. You see the second coming is good news for people who live every day in bad news. If you are a slave in Pharaoh’s Egypt, or in the southern United States in the early nineteenth century, if you are in Haiti living in constant corruption and war and disease, if you are a woman living in a culture where when your husband gets mad at you he can beat you or lock you up in a closet, if you are suffering in this world, then you don’t yawn when somebody mentions the return of Jesus Christ. If your own life is too comfortable to yearn for the second coming of Jesus, you must look outside of yourself and in compassion borrow from the yearnings of those who are suffering. One of the ways we can most relate, is to live a life of helping those in need. It will cause us to yearn more and more for Christ’s return.
4. Live a life of forgiveness
At the end of the 2 Peter passage I referenced earlier, after talking about the cataclysmic day of the Lord, Peter concludes his remarks with,
be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace
-2 Peter 3:14
If you find yourself mired in bitterness and un-forgiveness, thinking about the second coming is one way to get unstuck. Because not only is Jesus coming back to restore, but he’s coming back to judge.
You see, whenever someone wrongs you, often without thinking of it you run to the judgment seat and sit on it yourself. Because they hurt you and you think you know what they deserve and you want to help them get what they deserve. God is not sitting on his judgment seat yet, and it appears to us to be unoccupied, because terrible things happen in this world and there seems to be no payback. Things are not being put right.
It will take something very powerful to keep you from that impulse to run to that throne of revenge and anger and unforgiveness. And that powerful thing is remembering the second coming. You were not meant to be on that throne because it’s too big for you. Only God deserves to be the judge, you have no right. Because you too are worthy of judgment. You too are imperfect, so you have no right to be there. Only God has the appropriate knowledge to sit on that throne.
When someone wrongs you, you think you know that person’s motives, but you don’t. Your bitterness always blinds you to who they really are. When you are angry at someone you play up their bad parts and play down their good parts. Only God knows what they’ve been through. Only God has the power to give them what they deserve. He will put things right because He can and you can’t. Knowing that Jesus is coming allows you and me to forgive. It’s one of the ways we can live a ready life.
As we think about the end times, we don’t assume the role of predictors, we are the promoters of the king. We’re not on the planning committee, we’re on the welcoming committee. We would do well to heed Jesus’ words and live a life of readiness in 2025.
Stay Awake! Be Alert! Keep Watch! Live Ready.
