He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come Lord Jesus
Revelation 22.20
Yesterday we considered the invitation that surpasses all invitations, namely to come and be completely satisfied by what God has in store for his people. As you read it you might have had the question niggling away at you, “Can this really be true?” Equally even as a Christian of perhaps many years standing you may have known those moments when the same question crossed your mind.
In thinking about this we need to remember that the book that has this great invitation is not ‘Revelations’ or the ‘Revelation of John’ but the ‘Revelation to John’ of the Lord Jesus Christ. As he is the one who lived, died and rose from the dead we can have complete confidence in what he says and here it is the plain statement, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
The response, I take it of John initially and of the church overall, is in the form of another invitation, Come, Lord Jesus preceded by, Amen (so be it), as a response to the promise of his return.
This is the silver lining behind the cloud of a messy, mixed up and broken world. One day Jesus will return!
We do not know when. Indeed Jesus tells his disciples in the gospels that even he does not know when this will be and that it will be at the time, the right time, the perfect time that God decides. The promise was made 2000 years ago and still stands. It may be fulfilled today or it may yet be thousands of years away but that is not yours and mine to worry and fret about. Our task is simply to live and work and serve as each day gives opportunity, secure in the knowledge that our times are in God’s hands and that one day we shall enjoy all that he has promised.
Therefore we should pray with longing “Come Lord Jesus” for that is the hope we have. The hope that drives us, the hope that assures us, the hope that the devotionals by Dr Davies from EMW over the weekend have opened up for us from Romans chapter 8.
Someone once wisely said in relation to the return of Jesus that
We should live and love as if he were coming tomorrow but pray and plan as if he were not coming for a thousand years.
Let us be people who live like that!