When Will Jesus Come Back? – Part I

Scripture Reading: Luke 17:20-32

Key Verse: Luke 17:30

“Yes, it will be ‘business as usual’ right up to the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

Over the years, since Jesus’s first coming, the church has looked for Jesus’s second coming with vary degrees of intensity.

At times, there have been people who all but guarantee that Jesus is coming back on a particular date. Obviously, when Jesus didn’t come back then, that person fades out of the church’s memory. After a few years, another person pops up and claims they know the exact date that Jesus is coming back. This cycle has gone on as far back as I can remember; presently it’s been a while since anyone has tried to predicate the second coming. My prayer is that all these false predications hasn’t numbed the Christ-followers to the possibility of that great day of Jesus’s return; for He is coming!

In our “Scripture Reading” section for today, we read that the Pharisees asked Jesus a question about the coming Kingdom to which Jesus often referred. Let me give a quick summary of Jesus’s answer.

First, the partial Kingdom is here, already. In other words, Jesus told them that “the Kingdom of God is already among you” (Luke 17:21). Jesus was not talking about what modern day theologians often call the “completed or fulfilled” Kingdom. Jesus was saying that when anyone accepts Him into their lives, they become members of the Kingdom of God.

Today we know that there are millions of people who have accepted Jesus into their life and are keeping step with the Spirit of Christ that is in them. It is these folks that form the partial Kingdom of God on earth. We, who are part of this partial Kingdom, look forward to the completing of the entire Kingdom, when Jesus returns a second time.

Second, Jesus said that when He comes back, it will happen as fast as the “lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other…” (Luke 17:24). The obvious conclusion of this is that there will be no time to prepare our souls, when we see that happening.

Jesus warns people, over and over, that He came to prepare for His second coming everyone who believes. Now is the time to receive Jesus and join the partial Kingdom of God.

And now is the time to get serious with your relationship with Jesus. If you have received Him, are you doing your best to stay close to Him? Are you reading the Scriptures and praying daily?

In tomorrow’s devotion we’ll look at a couple other signs of Jesus’s second coming.

Father, forgive me for being lax in my preparation for the second coming. Remind me often that today could be “the day”. In Jesus’s Name, amen.