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We interrupt our current series on the Disciples of Jesus for a very time sensitive, urgent matter. A topic I have been prompted by the Holy Spirit to discuss with you today. Here it is – Are you ready for Jesus to come back in less than 2 weeks?
I fully understand that question makes me sound kookey. I’m okay with that – I’m willing to sound kookey for the sake of eternal things because let’s face it – we’re willing to go out on a limb for far less important things. So here I am today with a serious question for you to sit with for a moment – Are you ready for Jesus to come back in less than 2 weeks?
Where do your thoughts go immediately?
Track your thoughts with this because something important is happening – YOUR PRIORITIES ARE BEING REVEALED.
Yesterday morning I woke up to a text from a very close friend of mine. A friend who has become a spiritual accountability partner for me. We talk about those deep, spiritual things that you can’t talk about with everyone. The Spirit in her stirs up the Spirit in me. We are the iron that sharpens iron for each other. She’s not a kook. Her relationship with the Lord is real and her promptings from the Holy Spirit are legit. When she texts me, I lean in.
Her text yesterday morning was about a dream her daughter had – a dream where Jesus met her in the backyard and told her that he was coming back in 2 weeks.
Now, what do you do with that? Like literally, what do you do with that?
I’ll tell you what I did – I immediately counted forward to 2 weeks on my calendar, considering all I had going on and where I would be. Unfortunately that was very inconvenient timing for me. You see, these next 2 weeks I will be traveling, I’ll be hosting 2 retreats plus stops on the ROAM Tour. Jesus, I won’t even be with my family – can we discuss the timing of this?
Did you do the same? When you hear 2 weeks, are you thinking about your schedule? Your house? Your plans? Are you inconvenienced?
I spent the majority of yesterday wrestling this out. My priorities were being revealed in my immediate response to the thought of Jesus returning on such short notice, and I was so ashamed by how I truly felt. How about you?
I packed up my Bible and my journal and I headed to a coffee shop to sit with God and journal out my prayers and his responses. I was out of alignment and needed a rebalance. Think about that – you know how your car starts driving funky if you’re out of alignment? You start veering off to one side and driving in a straight line becomes a struggle. Because of the wear in your tires, it only gets worse until you take your car in for a rotation of those tires and rebalancing.
Yeah, my tires were a little worn with my worldly pursuits and concerns and I was out of balance. I was veering to the side and didn’t even realize it.
On my walk to the coffee shop, I came across a woman I often see. She’s likely in her 30’s, always pulling a wagon of random gatherings, and without fail, she is always looking directly at her cell phone. Like her eyes never leave her phone. She walks the streets, never looking up. Never aware of my passing, or anyone else’s. With eyes on her phone, she just walks along, pulling her wagon.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU CAN’T LOOK UP?
Yeah – that question was for me, not for her. Pamela, what could possibly be so important that you can’t look up? What is in this world that you’re so focused on that you don’t want to look up into the sky for my return? God whispered to my soul yesterday, “Pamela, I AM COMING – This is urgent. There’s work for you to be doing and short time for you to do it.”
Are we too the women pulling our wagon of everything we’ve been gathering, mesmerized by the things we’ve been looking at, refusing to look up? Are we oblivious to the fact that there’s so much more than here and now and this is all leading to eternity?
I haven’t been living with a sense of urgency. I’m pulling my wagon, piling up my things, making my plans and forgetting to look up.
1 Thessalonians 4:16, “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout …” Will I be looking up for him?
Matthew 24:30, “And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world – from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.” Will I be looking up for him?
This world has become far too important to me. I love my life. I love waking up every day to my life. I’ve waited a long time for this sweet season I’m living in now, a season of answered prayers and miracles are now my reality and quite honestly, I don’t want that to end. I want more of this. And that’s the problem. I’m not wiling to look up because I’ve grown so in love with down here.
This world cannot have our hearts. If it does, there’s a problem. The problem becomes our priorities are down here instead of looking up toward Heaven. Four simple verses in our Bible really sum it up:
Colossians 3: 1-4, “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”
THINK ABOUT THE THINGS OF HEAVEN – YOU DIED TO THIS LIFE – YOUR REAL LIFE IS WITH JESUS.
This life here in this world isn’t even our real life. Just as the woman pulling the wagon never looks up from her phone to see the world around her, we’re not looking up from our schedules, our plans, and our problems to see our real life. We just continue to drag our wagon around and fill it up – but are we missing the point of it all. THIS ISN’T OUR REAL LIFE.
I’ve fallen in love with this world. I’m surrounded by all this beauty. I love what I do. I love the people I get to share this life with. And the thought of it all being over in less than 2 weeks now is “inconvenient”???? Wake up sleeper – wake up. Set your mind on the things of Heaven again. Your real life is beyond this. Don’t be satisfied with this.
Have you heard the recording of the 20 year old co-pilot in her final seconds of life before the private jet crashed in Florida last week? The time between everything being manageable on the flight to the jet crashing was about 60 seconds. One minute they are on their way to the Bahamas, and the next they have imploded and all 9 lives have tragically ended. The co-pilots panicked final words on the recording are “We’re out of time ….”
In 60 seconds they went from being perfectly fine to being out of time.
My friends, what if we’re quickly running out of time?
This isn’t said out of fear, but out of a response to the Holy Spirit who says, “WAKE UP and LOOK UP.”
So yesterday morning begins with the text from a friend about this dream where Jesus says there’s only 2 weeks left in this world.
Then, I encounter the woman pulling her wagon never looking up from her phone.
Next, I’m sitting at the coffee shop and God is revealing to my priorities about my life in this world versus my real life with Jesus.
And finally, I’m standing in Church and we sing these words …
Give me Jesus – You can have all this world. I don’t want anything else. I don’t need anyone else. You are my one thing. Give me Jesus.
I’m here wrestling that out today. Am I willing to give up this world? Do I really want anything else?
So my friend, are you ready? What does God want to speak to you? Has your focus become on this world?
How is your soul? Do you have a relationship with Jesus, or have you been putting that off?
How about your loved ones? Are there urgent conversations that have been left unsaid?
We’re out of time ….
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