COV LIFE BLOG

Mark 13:24-37 – Watching for Christ’s Return

To be found ready, at whatever moment our Lord shall call for us, should be the one object of our ambition. With this view, we should seek to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness, but that which is of God through faith in Christ. Not content with a general hope of acceptance through Christ, we should wash our every sin, yea our every duty also, in the fountain of his blood, which must cleanse us from the “iniquity even of our holiest actions.” We should seek also to “be renewed in the spirit of our minds,” and to be transformed into “the image of our God in righteousness and true holiness.” No attainments should ever satisfy us: if we were as holy as Paul himself, we should, like him, “forget the things that are behind, and reach forward towards that which is before.” With a view to progressive holiness, we should carefully “abide in Christ,” “living by faith on him,” and receiving daily out of his fullness grace for grace: assured, that without him we can do nothing, but through him shall be enabled to do all things. In a word, we should seek to be ever ready to meet our God; yea, to be “looking for, and hasting unto the coming of that day,” when we shall be summoned to his tribunal, and receive our eternal end.
 
Thus, expect the second coming of your Lord. Put not from you, as you are too apt to do, the thoughts of death and judgment, but cherish them in your minds, and labour to get them impressed upon your hearts. Reflect upon their uncertainty, as to the precise period of their arrival, their nearness, their awfulness; and keep yourselves, as it were, in the daily and hourly expectation of them.
 
Prepare to meet him. Two things are indispensable for all who would behold his face in peace, namely, “repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” These must be experienced by you — neither the one nor the other can be dispensed with. Get a deep repentance therefore, and a lively faith: and rest not in any state short of that which the Scriptures require, and the primitive Christians actually attained.
 
Guard against any measure of drowsiness which may interrupt or render doubtful your preparation for him. It will be a fearful thing if the Master of the house “should find you sleeping.” Yet who amongst us is not apt at times to be “weary in well-doing?” “The Wise Virgins, as well as the Foolish, slumbered and slept:” yea, even the Apostles slept, when our Lord had bidden them watch. We should therefore “exhort one another daily, and so much the more as we see the day approaching:” and, instead of giving way to sloth, should use all possible means, to “strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die.”

Charles Simeon

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SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY
Read Mark 13:24-37 and consider the very real need for watchfulness for the day of Christ’s return. Are you watching? Are you living like you are watching? How can you grow in your watchfulness?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
Sovereign Over Us by Shane and Shane