Where Will the Master Find You?

Shortly after accepting Christ, God brought to my knowledge a basic Biblical principal and truth that has challenged me ever so much in my Christianity. It has virtually changed how I live every second of my life. I pray that God will work on your heart as you read the following. It is the very idea that keeps me in "spiritual fitness"...

God promises that one day He will return to snatch-up the Church (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). This will be a great day for us, but an equally terrible day for the lost. As Christians we often look towards the rapture with much anticipation and excitement, as we should, but there is also a great fear that comes with the package for many of us. Lets face it, most of us aren't living our lives according to the perfect will of God. We are not fully submissive to Him in all areas of our life. There are aspects of ourselves that we hide from God, and don't allow Him to touch. We have unpurged sin that is slowly, but surely, building up inside of us. And even those areas in which we have let God work in, the places in which we serve God, are not where they ought to be. We replace ministry preparation with "relaxing" time. We watch a football game rather than going to Saturday morning street preaching. We fail to have our quiet time in the morning because we much rather get that one extra hour of sleep. We are too busy to give God more than a few hours of our time each week. Sunday morning seems to be enough Bread for most Christians. I guess we don't really know what our walks could be like if we were in the will of God. We've just never lived there before.

Mark 13:32-37
But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. [For the Son of man is] as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.

More than being awfully sad, the state of the majority of our walks is frightening. Within the next ten seconds Jesus could come and take you home. He assures us that no man knows the day or the hour in which He will come. (Sorry guys, despite "88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Come in 1988", we really don't know the year either.) The point is, in two minutes we could be gone, and we would stand before God and have to give an account. This is a different judgment than that by which the unsaved will be judged under, we are saved by the Blood I assure you, but we will still have to give an account of how we used (or didn't use) that which God has given us. Our lives will be thrown into the fire and we will have to see what comes out. For some there will be gold, silver, and precious stones on the other side. They lived their lives under the hand of their Creator. But for others, the fire will bring nothing but ashes. Your life will have been of absolutely no use to God. You were a complete waste.

You and I will then have to stand before the One who laid down His life for us. The One who died so that we could avoid Hell. The One who has given us everlasting life. And for those who have lived a life fully devoted to Him He will say, "My child, enter our inheritance." Yet on the other side of the story, there will be those whose life brought only ashes. They'll still be able to enter the Promised Land, but won't it be shameful to stand before Him. He did everything for you, and you did nothing for Him. That is a scary thought.

My challenge to you is to start living your life with the complete sense that Jesus could come back at any moment (not to mention you could die). He has given each of us authority to do His work. Live every moment of your life like it will be your last. I much rather be found by Jesus passing out Gospel tracts than on a website I shouldn't have been on, or listening to the music I shouldn't be listening to, or in a place in which a Christian ought never to be. I want Jesus to come back finding me living a peculiar, sanctified life for Him.

Watch.