It's The End Of The World As We Know It

It seems to me that over the last few years the topic of the end of the world has been discussed more and more in our culture. Everyone is talking about it from government officials to mainstream media and even churches. It seems everyone is looking to the skies and waiting for a sign that the end of days has begun. Before we go any further, I want to record to show that I am not here to tell you who is right and who is wrong, trust me there are no winners in that argument, and to be honest I don't pay that much attention to the conversations anyways. What I want to bring to your attention is the urgency and importance of living our lives as if it was a gift for God and as if it was your last day on earth. We are not promised another day on this earth and the time we do have is very precious.

Take a moment to think… If you knew that today was your last day would it change the way you acted or the things you were going to do that day? Would you go to church and make amends for all your sins? Would you call all the people you have wronged and ask for their forgiveness? Would the way you live your life change in any way? It is crazy to think about but the day of the Lord could actually be tomorrow… At any second the trumpet could sound and we would have to answer for all of our actions in front of God the Father and Jesus His beloved son. For most of us, including myself, we overlook this reality and continue to live however we want. We tell ourselves that we will make the changes at a later date or when something happened for us first. We put off making any life changes until we feel it is right, but what if the “right time” never comes and we are left standing in the judgment room filled with a long list of what-ifs. We were too busy saying, “I will start praying and reading daily during advent or lent”, “We will start reading the Bible as a family on Monday”, or “ I will make the change for God when _____ happens for me”. We know that we need to make changes to be living in God’s way but we want to do it in our own timing, not His. We have convinced ourselves that we have more time but it is quite possible that we do not have that time.

So when will the world end? I don’t know, the government doesn’t know, your old high school friend on Facebook doesn’t know, and the movie 2012 definitely doesn't know. What I do know is that when we accepted God as our savior our world as we knew it did in fact end. We chose to begin living a new life in a whole new world where God is the center of all of our decisions. Although we may have still found ourselves living in the same physical world our spiritual, emotional, and mental world was changed. We were made into a new person and given new priorities. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come."

So how should we approach the end of the world? In my opinion, we need to stop worrying so much about when the world may end and start focusing internally on what we can be doing daily to make the world a better place with the time in which we still have left here. We can still dream of the future and pray that God will give us the time to fall in love, get married, have kids, and raise them to love God but that is completely out of our control. We cannot add or subtract a day to our life. Our job is to work hard at being the people that God created us to be and to fulfill our God-given purpose. With the reality that today could in fact be our last day, we should be taking God’s instructions more seriously. This reality should encourage us to be working hard towards receiving the ultimate goal of hearing “well done my faithful servant”.

I tell you all of this not to scare you or to make you think that the end of the world is coming soon. As I said above, none of us know the time or hour in which the world will end. Not even Jesus Himself knows the time only God alone knows. The real question is will you be ready when that day does come or will you wish that you had made the changes in your life sooner? Matthew 24:44 says, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” I saw a bumper sticker once that said, “look busy God is coming soon”, although I found it funny at the time now I know we shouldn’t just look busy but we should actually be busy working towards the goal of an eternity with God in heaven and we should be busy recruiting for heaven.

I want to leave you with this verse to think over and to work towards living out daily. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” We don’t have to know the exact day the world will end in order to begin living right in the eyes of the Lord. Maybe this is your wake-up call or your reminder that God is coming and you need to realine yourself with His ways.