“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” – Mark 13:33-35

Jesus is absolutely coming back and His return will be spectacular! Nonetheless, He’s very clear about what His followers are NOT to do in the meantime. We are NOT to spend our days obsessing about when He will return – that’s unknown and unknowable. We are NOT to doubt or forget the fact that He will return – that’s foolishness.

We ARE to do the work He has given us to do. Period. He has given His followers (the church) work and He expects us to do that work faithfully every day until He returns. What is our work? Make disciples who make disciples. Go and invite others to join the Kingdom of God by God’s grace through faith in Jesus. Proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and invite new followers to join the Kingdom and be baptized. Teach them to live lives of obedience to His commands, including the one about making disciples who make disciples.

What else are we to do? Worship God joyously. Love each other visibly. Love God completely. Love every neighbor selflessly. Care for and defend the most vulnerable among us so that others will praise God. Become more and more like Jesus personally. We’ve each got work to do and there is no better, greater, more important work than what we are each expected to do as followers of our glorious Savior!

“You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness”
– Psalm 30:11

This is one of the wonderful things God does for those who have embraced Christ when we lean into Him in our grief. In the midst of mourning, sorrow, and personal darkness, He can fill us with joy, delight, and gladness. Sometimes He does that by changing our circumstances for the better. But far more often and important, He does that in the midst of whatever we’re struggling with by giving us more of Himself.

As we grow in our relationship with God, pursuing Him daily in reading, meditation, prayer, worship, and ministry, we grow in our experience of Him. We grow in our understanding of Him and His glorious nature. We grow in our awareness of His presence in our suffering. As we do, the fruit of the Holy Spirit grows within us, filling us with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As our experience of the infinite God of the universe fills and overflows our finite hearts, we are moved to dance amidst mourning and to be glad in the midst of fear and sorrow. None of this invalidates the reality or pain of our earthly situation, yet we increasingly discover the ultimate and eternal joy of God in our heavenly situation.

“Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”” – Mark 12:29-31

We need these truths today and every day. Read them and repeat them often. The Lord is one, undivided, and almighty. Love Him with every part of your being. Love every neighbor as yourself.

We need these truths in a year in which politics threaten to divide us from our neighbors: family members, church members, and community members. As the people of God, never let earthly politics rip apart the heart of love and care we are commanded to show everyone. Rather than lamenting, “I don’t understand how X could vote for Y”, commit to love your neighbor as yourself. Period.

We need these truths in a year in which a new virus is likely to stoke fear, anxiety, selfishness, panic, and suffering. The Lord is one, He is all-powerful, He is in control of this world. Turn your fears over to Him in prayer. Love Him with every bit of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Let your love for Him crowd out your fear. Then love your neighbor in need as yourself.

“And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.” – Mark 12:26-27

For all who believe there is nothing after this life, I have good news and bad news: you are quite wrong! God has revealed from the earliest pages of Scripture that though our earthly lives end, we are eternal beings with billions and trillions of years ahead of us. He revealed this truth with increasing clarity as history advanced, making it utterly clear by the death and resurrection of Jesus, which gave proof of all He taught about heaven, hell, eternity, and judgment.

That brings us back to the good news/bad news part. God is perfect. Heaven is perfect. We aren’t perfect, no matter how hard we try to be. If we went to heaven it would no longer perfect. So how can we possibly get into heaven??? We can’t on our own! On our own, the eternity we face is one of utter separation from God.

The good news is that Jesus not only proclaimed the truth of heaven, He opened heaven’s door for us. By His perfect life, sacrificial death and bodily resurrection, He made it possible for everyone who believes in Him to be made righteous through faith. This is a gift of utterly undeserved grace given by God through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. By this gift, God credits the perfect righteousness of Christ to our account because we are united with Christ by faith. Christ lives within us and because He does, we will spend eternity with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!

“And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.” – Leviticus 9:23

What an incredible moment! After all the construction and preparation, after the commitment and ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, and after the sacrifices made to atone for the sin of the people and of the priests, everyone got to see the glory of the Lord for themselves!

We really can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like: to experience the outshining radiance of all the power, beauty, strength, wisdom, knowledge, goodness, holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, kindness, and grace of God. Words fail and so do imaginations. We certainly could (and should) wish to have such an experience of God’s presence.

And we will! For all who are in Christ, He has made atonement for our sins. By the grace and mercy of God, all who believe in Jesus will one day live in the presence of the glory of God forever in the new heaven and new earth. What was a momentary experience for Israel so long ago is the forever future of all who follow Jesus. We have something wonderful to look forward to!