Not When But Why

When is Christ coming back to earth to take his people home? According to the book of Matthew no one knows. Twice we are told to keep watch.

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come."

-- Matthew 24:42

"Therefore keep watch because you do not know the day or the hour."

                                                                                                            -- Matthew 25:13

In my mind that makes it very obvious that we will not know the exact time that Christ will return for his people. However, that does not change the fact that we know he will return.

I find it interesting that we can so easily get caught up in trying to figure out God's timing. We come up with all kinds of creative ways to calculate and arrive at the exact time, even though we are told we won't know. Yet, we tend to ignore or pass over those commands that we are to not only know, but also put into action. How can we be so creative in figuring out what we are not supposed to know, but have trouble creatively doing what we are supposed to know?

Someone told me years ago that they had figured out exactly when Christ was coming back. I admit to being a skeptic, but I just had to ask when. Their answer, "When the last person has accepted Christ as Savior." We desperately try to figure out the timing of Christ's return, but few desperately try to share Christ with the unchurched to let them know why he is coming. We are not in charge of timing; we are in charge of telling.

It does not matter when Christ is coming. It only matters that he is coming.  

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."           

  --1 Thessalonians 4:16-17