“For you yourselves know very well that the Day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night…. But you, friends, are not in the darkness, and the Day should not take you by surprise like a thief. All of you are people who belong to the light, who belong to the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, we should not be sleeping like the others; we should be awake and sober. It is at night when people sleep; it is at night when they get drunk. But we belong to the day, and we should be sober.” 1 Thess 5:2; 4-8 (GNT)
As the topic for this blog post was registered on my heart, I took a brief dash to the dictionary to refresh myself what “A Gentle Reminder” means. I usually wondered why a reminder was tagged ‘gentle’. The meaning is obvious!
The subject of the second coming of Jesus Christ is not a strange one even though it is a topic rarely mentioned on the pulpits these days. We hear so many messages and teachings; some, many times over in a single year, yet little emphasis is laid on the fact that we shall face Jesus again someday, very soon! We live for here and now expending so much in order to make our living beautiful and sweet. This is very important. While we await the coming of the Lord, we must live our lives to the maximum; fulfilling the purpose for which we are here. However, this should not becloud our understanding of the reality of Christ’s imminent return at an hour that no one knows. Somewhere in our subconscious, we know Christ is coming again, but I sensed a need to bring that to the front burner in our hearts rather than it dwell in the subconscious.
Since the past two weeks when I read the above passage, the subject of the coming of Christ hasn’t left me. Apostle Paul had to remind the believers in Thessalonica as much as this reminder is extended to us today to be at alert; be expectant and not get carried away by the issues of life such that we don’t seem to have snoozed on the subject of Christ’s coming. Doing this is tantamount to sleeping when we should be awake.Beloved, please be reminded that the coming of the Lord will be as a thief comes in the night; it would be sudden. It will catch us unawares, but for those who are prepared, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
Paul told the believers that “the day should not take you by surprise …”. We must live prepared for His coming; living in the conscious of His imminent return. We must do away with ungodly yokes and attachments that do not resonate with God’s kingdom. We should live soberly and righteously. We must lay our lives before the searchlight of the Lord so He can point to us, things that we need to deal with (if there are) in order to be prepared to go with Him when He comes again. It is not automatic that all believers will go with the Lord in rapture; but we must rather fulfil His own conditions to be qualified.It is my prayer that the Spirit of the Lord will quicken us and help us to be prepared for His coming! May we not be caught off-guard. We shall not be ashamed in His presence when He comes again. Amen!
This is a Gentle Reminder!
© Funmi Adebayo
