If you know your Bible, there can be no doubt we are at the end of the church age. We don’t know the exact day nor hour (Matthew 25:13), but we do know the season.  The signs are everywhere if one has the spiritual eyes to see them, and our daily lifestyle should reflect the fact.

Instead of being swept up with fear for the future, as it is worldwide for the unsaved or ignorant but saved believers. We should follow after the early church, and develop a lifestyle of eagerly waiting.

Is this the way you’re living each day now? Am I? These are good questions to ask ourselves. The temptation to wilt under the weight of a world gone mad with sin, filth, perversion, and outright rebellion against God is great. But by keeping our eyes on God’s word, and knowing the shortness of the time left before His return, we should be waiting for Him with eager anticipation. 

Every day when we wake up, we should begin by praising God for the fact that we’re all one day closer to our glorious departure, or His glorious return! One day closer. We wait – not in fear or impatience, but with excitement and joy! As you read this article today, realize it could be today!  

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body….  Philippians 3:20-21

Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.  Romans 8:23

Good news, brethren! Someday soon we’re going to get a brand-new body to live in, and because our new body comes from God, there won’t be any scares, marks, blemishes or imperfections. 

Never forget we are spirits with a soul, living in a body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Right now, as a Christian, our spirit – the inner man – is born again and righteous in the sight of God, thanks to the work of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). 

Our soul is being renewed day-by-day, as we labor to enter into His rest by faith (Romans 12: 2/Ephesians 4:23/Hebrews 4). However, our physical body is still dead-in-sin, and must be controlled (1 Corinthians 9:27). Right now, Jesus is the only One with a resurrection body (Luke 24:39). But we’re in line to get ours as well (1 Corinthians 15:35-58), if we hold fast our hope firm until the end (Hebrews 3:6).  

It takes no more energy to believe God as it does to believe the lies of the devil. It's just a choice we get to make every day. With our Lord’s return so close at hand, why waste time dabbling in the things of this world, or the dead-to-sin flesh? Why give place to the devil (Ephesians 4:27)? 

Paul’s staff member Demas is the Bible’s poster boy for what happens when you quit eagerly waiting for our Lord’s return. At one point, he was one of Paul’s trusted helpers in ministry – one whom Paul mentioned by name when writing to the Colossians and to Philemon (Colossians 4:14/Philemon 1:24). 

Unfortunately for him, he fell away because he loved “this present world” (2 Timothy 4:10). Don’t be a Demas! Finish your race! Stay true to God. Don’t just wait for our Lord’s return – do so with great excitement and anticipation! 

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.  Romans 13:11-14

When we’re eagerly waiting for our Lord’s return, the temptations to fall away in sin or compromise can be successfully and consistently rejected. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for “other things” have no ability to deceive us and lead us astray (Mark 4:19). This is how Paul weathered every attack of the enemy, and triumphantly came to the end of his life and ministry.  

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.  2 Timothy 4:7-8

I love our Lord’s appearing. Do you? If you say you do, are the choices you make each day an accurate reflection of that? How much time do you spend each day building up your inner man, and renewing your mind to God’s word? How diligent are you to keep your flesh submitted and under control of your born-again spirit? 

With God’s help and grace, I’m doing all I can to stay sharp and ready to go at a moment’s notice, whether it be via the Rapture or physical death at the end of my race someday. Why? Because I’m eagerly waiting for our Lord’s return. I hope you are, too!  

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; Deuteronomy 30:19

The most powerful weapon given by God to man is the power of choice.  People will spend eternity in either heaven or hell, solely based upon the words they chose to speak (Matthew 12:36-37). Think about that! The words we speak seal our eternal destiny.  God doesn’t make us get saved, and the devil doesn’t make us go to hell. We choose. It’s all up to us. So, choose your words carefully (Ecclesiastes 5:2).