CONSIDER YOUR PREPAREDNESS

(Guest post by: Pastor Gerald Steele) Blogmas Day Eleven 2024

Are you ready for Christmas? This is a common question raised at this time of the year. In other words, is the tree up? Are the presents purchased? Have the lights been strung? Has the house been decorated? Are the stockings hung? All of these questions have to do with preparedness.

I’ll confess that the older I’ve become, the more grateful I am for Amazon. Online purchasing is a lot easier and less stressful than making the annual pilgrimage to all the stores. However, my goal in this short little article is to have you, the reader, consider your preparedness, not for Christmas, but for the second coming of Christ.

This past week I was struck again by Paul’s words to Timothy, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.” (2 Timothy 3:1)

It’s fascinating to me that the word for “terrible,” or “perilous,” is the Greek word, “chalepos,” which is used only one other time in the New Testament. The other reference is found in Matthew 8:28 which says, “When He (Jesus) arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way.” The term “violent” is “chalepos,” and is translated “exceedingly fierce” in several other English translations.

Am I alone in my observation that we are living in a timeframe where it appears that all hell is being unleashed against the world in which we live? I see the “terrible times, “chalepos,” as a DEMONstration, a literal unleashing of the demonic hordes, against planet earth and its inhabitants.

Jesus warns in His Olivet Discourse about deception, which is the devil’s primary job description. “Jesus answered: ‘Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.’” (Matthew 24:4-8)

Ironically Jesus says that all these happenings are, “the beginning of birth pains.” In other words, there’s more “bad stuff” to come.

Again, the Apostle Paul fleshes this out in 2 Timothy chapter 3 when he says, “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power…” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Many Christians, myself included, live in anxious anticipation of the rapture, Christ returning to catch up His Church, thus ushering in a stream of end time events. Read 1 Thessalonians chapters 4 and 5.

However, before that climactic event occurs, the followers of Jesus need to be prepared to weather some storms. So, how does one prepare for end time events, especially for Christ’s second coming?

1 Thessalonians 5:16-23 instructs us how to be prepared for the Lord’s return, so read and apply… “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

To summarize, live a life of perpetual praise, prayer, and personal holiness and you will be prepared for the events leading up to, and including, the Lord’s second coming!