Jesus Hasn't Come Yet!

“Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come.” (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2)

If you’re reading this devotion, Jesus hasn’t come back yet. Does that seem obvious? Apparently, that wasn’t obvious to the Christians in Thessalonica. They were unsettled and alarmed by rumors that Judgment Day had already come. Even worse, those rumors were supposedly from Paul himself. Did they miss out? Were they left behind? Had Jesus already come?

Paul gave them a very clear answer: “No!” He encouraged them not to believe rumors, even if those rumors supposedly came from him. There was no need for them to be so easily unsettled and alarmed.

That’s true for you too. Maybe you’ve never been worried that Judgment Day has already come, but there are still so many false rumors about the end of the world, aren’t there? There is the false teaching of the rapture, that Christians will be secretly taken while unbelievers are left behind. That’s false. There is the false teaching of the millennium that Jesus will reign for one thousand years over a kingdom here on earth. That’s false. There are all the notions of Hollywood that present the apocalypse as a fight to survive and end with a handful of exhausted survivors walking around a destroyed earth. That’s false.

The truth about Judgment Day, which Paul has been carefully explaining to the Christians in Thessalonica in both 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians, is that on Judgment Day, Jesus will come back once and for all. You can’t miss it. Nobody will miss it. Those who don’t believe in Jesus will be punished with everlasting destruction in hell, while those who believe in Jesus will be taken with Jesus to life in heaven. That doesn’t sound complicated, does it? For Christians, that doesn’t sound scary, does it?

Whatever rumors you hear swirling around about Judgment Day, do not “become easily unsettled or alarmed.” When Jesus comes again, you’ll know it, without a shadow of a doubt. More importantly, when Jesus comes again, he’ll take you home to be with him in heaven. He just hasn’t come yet!

Dear Lord Jesus, I don’t want to miss out on your return. Thankfully, you reassure me that you won’t come in secret. You will come on the clouds to take me home to heaven. Come, Lord Jesus! Amen.

Pastor Nathan