The BFF Digital Libraries

Facebook BFFBFF is now on Facebook! Please visit and join us in releasing God's powerful Word to our generation!

God's peace can help us live above anxieties as we learn to trust in Him!

The Lord Your Healer: Discover Him and Find His Healing Touch by Paul J. Bucknell

Newest! The Lord Your Healer

Discover Him and Find His Healing Touch

First step of discipleship
revive devotions
Advanced Discipleship

The Bible Teaching Commentary on Genesis: The Book of Foundations

Commentaries that specialize on training the teacher!

Overcoming Anxiety: Finding Peace, Discovering God

 

1 and 2 Samuel Rising of the Kings

Waiting upon Christ's Return

Paul J. Bucknell
_________________________

Waiting Upon the Lord | Waiting & Planning | Steps to Waiting | Fail to Waiting
Biblical Perspective on Waiting| Waiting for Ministry |Waiting for Revenge
Waiting for a Wife | Trusting through Treachery | Waiting for Christ's Return
Study Questions | Testimonies on Waiting Upon the Lord | Godly Man Index

Purpose

Waiting upon Christ shows the exciting way Christians are to wait for the return of Jesus Christ and practical ways this hope shapes our lives.

We are waiting for Christ like people at a bus stop.Waiting upon God has no more exciting task than to wait for Christ's return.

A Christian was never meant to live on earth as if this was their total experience. Our lives here are like waiting for a bus. We have somewhere else to go. We have something else to do. Peter describes this 'waiting' by calling God's people aliens.

By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:9-10).

The Godly Man: When God Touches a Man's Life--- Purchase The Godly Man and its ten studies in easy epub or pdf format!

By Christ's return we will see an absolute, welcomed and permanent change to our hostile environment. Judgment will obliterate sin and rebellion. Our flesh will be destroyed with the last vestiges of sin, and most glorious, we will see the Lord as He is in His fully glory.

If we at any point have stopped eagerly waiting, it means that we are no longer anticipating His return. By not waiting essentially means that we can get along with what we have. But the godly man has a hatred for this place. He on the one hand distastes what is here and loves what is to come.

Our fixation on things of the earth cause us to forget that this is not our final destination. This is the reason the scriptures are full of admonitions on waiting for Christ's return. The Old Testament scriptures repeatedly speak of the Messiah's first and second coming, though often blended together. They put us in the waiting mode. Jesus made parables urging us to wait. The epistles warn us time after time to cast our full expectancy upon Christ's return.

Here are just a three references to our need to wait upon Christ's coming.

Reference Scriptures Context Application
Luke 12:36-37

Waiting for fulfillment of our greatest desires

 And be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.
 After addressing his disciples' need for food and clothing, Jesus pointed them to what they should really be thinking of with the story of the faithful and attentive slaves.

"Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves." (Luke 12:38,).		 Jesus believes our real efforts in life should be focused on getting ready for what counts the most, not things on earth but in heaven.

Waiting upon the Lord means waiting for Him to come in all His glory and wonder, fulfilling all His wonderful promises.
1 Corinthians 4:5

Waiting for the Lord to bring justice and reward

 Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God.
 We are called not to pass judgment on one another but to wait for the Lord's return where everything hidden will be made known We are to trust God for working out full justice and treatment of people around us. We must not focus on carrying out justice but on waiting for the Lord to do this at His return. We should be faithful and will be rightly rewarded
1 Thessalonians 1:1

Waiting for deliverance from God's wrath.

 And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.
 A number of Thessalonians had just come to know the Lord and are now living for Christ. Paul expresses delight in their waiting for Jesus' return. Each Christian should wait for God's resurrected Son to return to hearth from heaven.

Jesus will deliver them from the soon coming anger to God on Judgment Day.

 

In summary, we must say that we are regularly and urgently called to wait upon the great work that will be done by God at Christ's return.

  • With regards to the creation, we now know it is in bondage; on that day it will be fully released (Romans 8:19-22).

  • With regards to our bodies, we realize that they will be fully transformed (1 Corinthians 15:35-53).

  • With regards to our knowledge of God, we will finally come to fully know Him, our Great Savior (1 Corinthians 13:12; 1 John 3:2).

  • With regards to the world, God will fully judge all forms of wickedness and rebellion (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9).

Man's Effort To Redeem Society

I am very concerned about man's efforts to redeem our society. There is a difference between establishing a godly society and creating an affluent one. Our problem seems to come from thinking that programs make our society more godly rather than the church being more holy. With all the billions of dollars spent on improving the lot of man, we need to see our society is simply much more corrupt and evil. The church has become worldly rather than holy.

Perhaps part of the problem stems from understanding what it means to be stewards of what we have. The best understanding of this must work from focusing on the church's holiness and work outward into society by the church's corporate testimony and the Christian's personal one. If we do it otherwise, then we will make compromises with power and money.

The fact is that the greatest good to come to this society is for Gods people to simply no longer be attracted to it. They need to start looking for another place like Abraham. Somehow we think that this is the world that God has given us, and we are trying to fix it up. This view is faulty and is built on several wrong premises.

  • A fixation on what we have by sight rather than what we will have by faith.
  • A trust in our abilities rather than in God's spiritual transformation in our lives.
  • A belief that our desires can be satisfied with what we have rather than in what God promises.

We need to wait upon the Lord. He alone is our great joy. He alone can rightly judge the wickedness. He alone can create 'all things new.' If we are not waiting upon Him to do these things, then we ought to see that we are ensnared by the attractions of this world. We are willing to tolerate a society without the Lord being praised and magnified. Now is the time to work diligently living godly lives and waiting for Christ's glorious return.

"And it will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might" save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation" (Isaiah 25:9).

Let me paint a picture of what this might look like. God's people begin to pray. They repent from their sins. They no longer permit sins in their own lives and begin to challenge those around them with less than loving activities. They desire the Lord's return.

They look to God's perfect holiness in their lives. More people are sensitized to their sins. Some of them are convicted and desire to turn from their wicked ways. More people come to know the Lord. With every faithful Christian, his testimony touches upon numerous lives.

A challenge. How often do you think of our Lord's return? Why or why not? May God grant is an increasing longing for Christ's glorious return.

He who testifies to these things says,
"Yes, I am coming quickly."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
(Revelation 22:20-21)

 

Next => Study questions, Testimonies, Index for Godly Man