"Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming - in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning - lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
Jesus' return is imminent. That's a certainty. Jesus' timing? That's an uncertainty. And what will I be doing upon His arrival? Will I be unaware, unprepared, and caught unsuspecting? Will I be ashamed in whatever state He may find me?
It's disheartening to think that my propensity at times is to sleep, slumber and slack thinking that no one's watching and no one's going to stumble upon me. That's the height of arrogance and deceitfulness; arrogance because I think I can predict the predetermined plan of another (especially my all-knowing God), and deceitful because I think I can get away with something to satisfy myself before anyone shows up and sees what I was really doing - when they arrive and see things in order then they presume I was busily tending to what they see, but instead I was actually tending to myself and thereby fooled them into thinking something of me other than the real truth. Who do I think I'm fooling anyway? The fool is me.
There's not a moment to let my guard down, not one. Not because I'm afraid of what the Savior might see (and He does anyway whether I see Him or not), although that ought to be motive enough, but rather because my days are numbered as are the hairs on my head. I've no time to waste on futile ambitions and self-promotion. Devotions of that kind are not reflective of love for the Savior but rather love of self. If I could but harness one ounce of my own self-love and redirect it to genuine love to Christ, then I will have begun to fulfill the whole Law. And that Law has no power to save, but it does have the power to convict and the power to prove the depth of my love to Jesus. This is not a duty, but a response of love to love.
Today, as I write, I want to be ready for Jesus' return, but if He should not come in my lifetime, may I live today as if He were, motivated by love and not fear.
'I love You, Jesus!'
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