If Jesus returns to earth during your lifetime, what do you want him to find you doing? As for me, I want to be found faithful.
For each of us, it’s a matter first and foremost of whether or not we are saved. My saving faith in Jesus rests in his completed on the cross, where he paid the penalty for my sin. I believe that he died for me and rose from the dead on the third day. When I was thirteen years old, I surrendered my life to him and he became my Lord and Savior. He changed my life forever, and I am guaranteed an eternal home in heaven.
Has anything like that every happened to you? If not, please send me a message and/or read HERE to know how Jesus can save you, change your life, and change your eternal destiny.
For those who know Jesus as Lord and Savior, what about you? What do you want to be doing when Jesus returns? I want to be faithfully serving him. Jesus describes in Matthew 24 the difference between those who know him (he refers to them as “the faithful and wise servant”) and those who do not (he refers to them as “the wicked servant”) in regards to what they will be doing when he returns.
Matthew 24:45-51
45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. 47 Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. 48 But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50 the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know 51 and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Here are five truths from those words of Jesus.
Those with faith in Christ will be faithful to Christ. When Jesus saves you and you place your faith in him, you have an internal desire to live for him. This type of person is referred to as a faithful and wise servant in Matthew 24. If you do not have a desire to live a life of holiness, talk like Jesus, serve people like Jesus did, and even think like Jesus did, then you should ask yourself, “Is Jesus truly the Lord and Savior of my life?” A person with faith in Christ is not perfect, but their direction is toward Christ. They desire to be faithful to Christ in every way.
The faithful will be working when Jesus returns. They will be doing their master’s business (v46). They will be using their gifts and talents to serve the Lord (see Mt 25:14-30) and they will be serving the least of these (see Mt 25:31-46) in their community, city and around the world.
The faithful will be rewarded. Rewards will not be given so that people can strut around heaven. Rather, they will be given to you so that you can present them to Jesus as you worship him and reign with him for all eternity (see Revelation 4). Rewards will not given based on earthly success. Rewards will be given based on faithfulness to do what Jesus asked you to do.
The wicked will not be ready when Jesus returns. As Jesus described, the wicked servant will waste his time with immorality, drunkenness and destruction. The wicked will hurt others not help others. Those who do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior will not be ready when he returns. They will not be expecting him to return.
The wicked will receive judgment for their sin. The words Jesus used to describe the eternal fate of the wicked bring chills to your bones. Among those in this terrible eternal dwelling place are the hypocrites (v51), those who claim to be followers of Jesus but are not. He described a place so horrible it could only be described as a place of eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth (v51). Spiritually lost people will spend eternity suffering in a place eternally separated from the love of God.
Will you be found faithful when Jesus returns? First, do you know Jesus as your Savior? And second, do you have a life that is daily surrendered to Jesus your Lord?
Be ready and be faithful.