Are you ready for Jesus' return? I cannot wait till the LORD returns! It is all too easy, at points, to become apathetic and comfortable; especially when everything seems to be going just fine in life. If not careful we might start thinking this situation, our time here on earth, is our home.
This sentiment is truly troubling. Certainly it is understandable to be thankful for the good things of this life, but the problem with this sentiment is that it is selfish! It does not think about most of the other people in the world; or for that matter plenty of people right here in the United States of America. There is suffering on untold scale on this planet. There are people in this world, and most of them, who if you were to ask them about The Great Tribulation (yet future); they would laugh at you, and say they have been living in the Great Tribulation their whole lives. People are dying of starvation, disease, wars; people are being traded as sex slaves, and butchered by drug lords; people are experiencing all kinds of mental and spiritual anguish. This life is full of tribulation (as Jesus promised). Can you imagine being an Egyptian Christian, a Chinese Christian, a North Korean Christian, a Sudanese Christian, a Haitian Christian, etc.? Their only hope for release is to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord --- or better yet, to have Jesus come again and make all things right. There are all kinds of people that I know of personally (now that I pay attention, since I had it [hmm . . . I received my own wake up call]) that are suffering from the horrific ills of cancer and the treatment of cancer. Our world is in absolute upheaval!
We need to, as the author to the Hebrews said:
"Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." Or like Paul says in I Corinthians 12 (my paraphrase):
If one part of the body hurts, we all hurt. We may well be in a time of peace and comfort, good; then let's use this time, our riches, so to speak, to minister to those who are going through circumstances that reflect glimpses or tastes of hell on earth. This is not our home, home is with the LORD!
