Matthew24:36 “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows (NLT).
Sometime ago, I read two sermon illustrations about rapture. The first is about a mother who explained to her little girl, the death of her father.
The mother said: “God has sent for your father and will send for us, but I do not know just when.” Finally, the little girl said: “If we do not know just when God is going to send for us, do you not think we had better pack up and get ready to go? God might send when we are not ready.”
F.B. Meyer once asked D.L. Moody, “What is the secret of your success?” Moody replied, “For many years I have never given an address without the consciousness that the Lord may come before I have finished.”
These stories illustrates what it mean to be ready. In the history of the early church, tradition has it that they lived under a very strong conviction that Christ would come in their time. Little wonder why they took the work of soul-winning serious.
A wise man said we should stop getting ready for the coming of the Lord but we should live ready for his coming. The process of getting ready is not the same as being in a state of readiness.
No true believer will feel at home here because "...our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ",Phil 3:20.
Jesus is coming soon. We must live with the consciousness of His soon return every day. The signs are there for us to see. The message of His coming is becoming rare on pulpits today. The "theology" of some do not believe in the rapture of the saints.
Men live as though there's no where after here forgetting that the life after this life is eternal and never ending. Our goals and plans must factor in eternity. We won't be here forever.
We are not designed to live here forever, there's a home after here.
Knowing that Christ is coming will help us stay pure in readiness for His coming: "And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (1John3:3).
Father, I receive grace to live ready on daily basis in Jesus name.