The Time Is Near

6 min read

1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Revelation 1:1-3

NOTE: I am guessing that the passage for today is Revelation 1:1-8. I left my booklet at church, and the Duranno site is down.

Blessing comes from not only hearing the word of God, but taking it to heart, doing the things that it calls us to do, and sharing it with others.

Jesus revealed to John that “the time is near” almost 2,000 years ago. But we must not be fooled or lulled into thinking that the time is not near according to human reckoning. Rather, we must recognize that the span of a human life is very brief according to God’s reckoning (and maybe even human reckoning). And so whether Jesus comes back today or 10,000 years from now, He will come in due time, but we will come face to face with Him in the blink of an eye.

Therefore, we ought to devote our lives to fulfilling God’s purpose for each and every one of us: to fill the earth with the glory of God in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshipping, God-loving communities and families, the church.

We must remember what the Apostle Peter wrote:

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:8

And it helps me (and I hope it helps others) to also remember that the 2,000th (bimillennial) anniversary of Jesus’s crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension is coming in a mere six to eight years (scholars debate the actual year, but it generally falls in that range).

Jesus’s second coming may be scary to many people because we haven’t taken to heart the revelation of Christ given to us in the Scriptures. We don’t quite take to heart that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, and not by anything that we could possibly do (Ephesians 2:8-9). In other words, we don’t quite take to heart that we cannot earn our salvation. And if we have any self-awareness of sins at all, then the prospect of Jesus coming back is scary.

At the same time, we don’t quite take to heart the fact that not only have we been saved from eternal damnation, but we have been saved for eternal glory—an eternal glory that begins right here and now (Ephesians 2:10). To be saved for eternal glory means to follow Jesus now and reflect His glory—to say the things He says, do the things He does, to go to the places He goes.

So instead of pursuing eternal glory, we pursue personal glory, which dies when we die. But that pursuit of personal glory seems so important to us—more important than Jesus coming back, because that would interrupt our pursuit of personal glory.

Of course, I’m speaking from my own experience about these matters. True discipleship only happens when we take up our cross daily and follow Jesus.

Father, thank You for the cross. Help me to take up my own cross and live for Christ. Help me and help this Canvas family take the revelation of Jesus Christ to heart. In Jesus’s name. Amen.

Pastor Sang Boo

Pastor Sang Boo joined the GCC family in June 2014. After being born again in the fall of 1998, Pastor Sang was eventually led to vocational ministry in 2006. He enrolled into Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, where he received his Master of Divinity in 2009 and also his PhD in 2017. Pastor Sang has a deep desire to renew the hope of Christ and His church in the South Bay through love and the power of the gospel. He married his beautiful wife, CJ, in 1995, and they have three wonderful kids. Pastor Sang enjoys guitars, movies, and golf.

Previous
Previous

Face to Face

Next
Next

The Lie about NextGen