Mark 13:32-37

A Thief In The Night was a movie I watched as a brand new wide-eyed baby Christian in 1976. The film opens with a woman awakened by an emergency radio broadcast. While in her half sleep, the commentator is announcing the disappearance of millions of people no more than 30 minutes prior. After the woman realizes her husband is missing, she sinks to the side of her bed as the radio voice quotes the BB scripture passage for today.

Therefore, be on the alert – for you do not know when the master is coming,.. lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.”

The net effect of this film for me was what I thought Jesus wanted when He said, “Be on the alert!”. I lived for a decade with a gnawing concern, fully expecting Him to return at any time. That might seem fanatical but in the context where I met Christ, you definitely had the impression just about anything could happen. It was the waining days of the Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal. It was as if Jesus, after failing in the mainline,  had sent his servants out into the highways and byways and extended His banquet invitation to a multitude of unlikely characters such as myself. It was an amazing time! People were being saved and transformed all around me. It looked like a God-ordained “end-times”, ingathering of souls that many were presuming might just precede a “rapture”. My bags were packed, but not really all that well.

If you are unfamiliar with these movements, they pop up quickly on Wikipedia. For millions including myself the religion of Christianity was exchanged for a rebirth into a fresh and vibrant relationship with God, the Father. As Keith Green was touring and preaching with his Last Days Ministries, myself and many I knew were “on the alert” setting aside what we were doing with our vocations and plugging into ministries and missions in order to participate in this harvest and, very importantly I should add, to be found “awake”, being “about the Father’s business” when He returned.

It turned out we were wrong about the timing of Jesus’ return. If you have some familiarity with the New Testament you know that they too thought Christ’s return was imminent. I do not regret being wrong and becoming abandon to the prospect of His “anytime” return. I doubt if any of those New Testament saints did either. We were wrong in one sense; but in another more important one, we were right in that we attempting obedience.

I mentioned earlier that I thought I knew what Jesus meant when He said to be on the alert. Well, I didn’t just miss the timing. I also missed “the spirit” of the command. There was an unhealthy type of “fear of God” in my heart then, evidenced by the gnawing concern that I mentioned. Obeying God because you fear He might leave you behind is an inferior motivation for obedience. Fear exposes our unbelief in the “keeping” competence of the Father and causes us to think more about our own holiness than is good for us. Moving forward because you are being prodded from behind by fear is not the same as moving forward because you are being drawn by His love.

I am so grateful that the soil of my life was deep enough and of the right type that when my “gnawing” fear-motivation dissipated there remained a residual love component in the soil composition of my heart.  Love and gratitude are superior motivations which provide a more stable and enduring motivation. I believe I am ready to meet Christ at the appointed time in whatever setting He might choose. However, I have repacked my bags with readjusted expectations as to the timing. I feel I am in good company on this since neither the angels nor Jesus Himself knows at what time this will happen.

Father, whether You come today or thousands of days from now, may our hearts find secure and safe refuge in Your love, so much so, that we avail ourselves of the bold access we have to You throughout each of those days, however many of them there are. May we maintain our alertness out of Your life within us; out of Your love for us, as we joyfully live out our days in Your loving presence.

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