Getting Ready for Jesus
How does one get ready for Jesus’ return? Empty your bank account? Untie your shoes? Get busy with evangelism? The real event of Jesus’ return is overshadowed in the Western world by popular, (but not necessarily Biblical), concepts of a rapture and cataclysmic final days of planet earth. The New Testament does indeed talk about Jesus’ return, or better said “re-appearing”, but not His “return” in the sense of Jesus being absent and a long way off in a place called heaven and then returning, as in travelling to earth, to take us away too. No, Jesus is already and forever present with His people. Jesus said at His ascension: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” Matthew 28:20. The Church exists because the manifest presence of Jesus. She could not exist without His presence, though buildings and organizations could, but that is another story. The story that the four gospels writers want to tell is not about the world ending and Jesus returning to take us away from the burning wreck, but about God Himself returning to His temple. In other words, the returning referenced in the gospels is almost entirely speaking of God’s return to His temple and His people in and through the person of Jesus, rather than Jesus’ re-appearing or supposed “return” thousands of years later. What people needed to be ready for then was the return that was happening right before their very eyes. God was returning to His temple and to His people and to His world to renew them all and to bring about a righteous judgment so that there will be righteousness in the streets and healing in the land. The world was not ready for Jesus’ coming then, and it is not ready for the announcement of His presence and Lordship today. And the truth be told, that announcement is often been muffled and muddled by the misled concepts of the rapture and the end of the world. It’s my desire to re-claim the gospel message of God’s return in the person of Jesus that we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In this week’s podcast, Karl and Susie discuss the concept of “Getting Ready for Jesus’ return”. Listen, comment below, and share with a friend! And don’t forget that our Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of Luke Conference is coming up in only 8 days! Register today! Meeting Jesus in the Gospel of Luke August 5, 2017 Hendersonville Presbyterian Church 699 North Grove St. Hendersonville NC 28792 Registration is free, just call 828-553-2020 or send an email with the subject title “Registration” to thegospelforplanetearth@gmail.com