Watch (Written by David Peterson)
Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives when disciples came to him and asked questions about his second coming and the end of the age. He says in
Matthew 24:42-44:
“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you must be ready as well; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.”
This account is also found in Luke 12:39-40 and we find that Jesus warns us that the Day of the Lord is a mystery and of the imperative of being prepared.
J.C. Ryle, the great Anglican bishop from the 1800’s, once said “Even after conversion he carries within him a nature prone to evil, and a heart weak and unstable as water. That heart will never be free from imperfection in this world, and it is a miserable delusion to expect it. To keep that heart from going astray, the Lord Jesus bids us ‘watch and pray.’ The spirit may be ready, but the flesh is weak. There is need of a daily struggle and a daily wrestling in prayer.”
Until Christ comes back for His believers Ryle impresses upon us to watch for Him and pray for His return. American Christian hymn writer, Barney E. Warren, wrote in his hymn “Watch, for the Savior is Coming”, from stanza 2, “Will you be ready and waiting for the great trumpet’s sound? When the lost world will be shaking, where will you then be found?”
Warren inspires us to watch for the coming Savior for we know not when He will be at our door.
Let us pray: Returning Jesus, we pray to be ready and that we will watch as we prepare through our sanctification to witness that glorious day of your return.