We live in unprecedented times.  We live in a culture that is calling “right” to be “wrong” and calling “wrong” to be “right” or as proverbs would say, “every way of a man is right in his own eyes” (21:2).

These times we live in are uncertain in every aspect of life.  Are we living in the last days?  Is Christ return soon?  No one really knows for sure.  Most of the saints that have gone on before us thought they would see Christ return in their lifetime, only to go to Him instead.  The apostle Paul reminds Christ followers that “whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” 

(Romans 14: 8) - that is a great promise, but still, even Christ follower’s wonder if this is it?!  Even Jesus’ apostles enquired of Jesus “tell us, when will these things be?  And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (cf. Matthew 24).  Although Jesus told them many things to look for in Matthew 24, he said “see that you are not troubled; for these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet…all these are the beginning of sorrows.”  If anything, I would say we are in the beginning of sorrows that Jesus spoke of, we just really don’t know how long this will go on.  Jesus goes on to remind us in Matthew 24, “he who endures to the end shall be saved!”  Whether these are the signs of the times of the last days or not, we should always live in expectation of Jesus’ imminent return.

The apostles and early disciples lived that way.  They would great one another with “maranatha”, aramaic word for “O’Lord come” or “our Lord, come!”  May God help us to be living out intentionally the great commission and live in expectation of Jesus’ return -

“Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2: 13).