Tuesday 24 January 2012

Facebook Question: How do we prepare for the Lord's return? Can we hasten His return?


Recently I have started asking some questions on facebook, partly because I want to know how my friends on Facebook think / feel about some things, and partly to see how much of the Word of God and the ministry gets into us and becomes part of our constitution. We read the Bible, we live a daily life under the divine dispensing, and we do our best to enjoy the Lord both personally and corporately. And from time to time, whether through people around us or in the church life, there are some of these questions being asked - how do we answer them? Here are some of the previous questions which were posted online:
  1. What would be your prayer to the Lord for the new year 2012?
  2. What do you love the most in the home meetings of the church?
And now, here's another question I asked my friends on Facebook: 

HOW do we prepare for the Lord's return? He wants to return, but He's waiting for us to be prepared - how do we / you prepare for the Lord's return? How do we hasten His return? 
And here are some of their answers :) 
  • Brother, I would do my best to share the Gospel of Jesus... As much we do this, His return would be closer. Amen!
  • I've just read something like this, "All of our hope rests in the coming of our Lord. When He comes, all problems will be solved. Instead of focusing on problems, we can turn our eyes upon Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). He has already taken care of the problem of sin and today we can receive Him as our Saviour and as our new life. To do so, simply open your heart to the Lord and pray: “Lord Jesus Christ, I need you to solve all my problems. Thank You for dying to save me. I open to receive You as my new life. Lord Jesus, come quickly!
  • The Lord is waiting for His Bride to be prepared. The Bride is a matter of love. We must love the Lord, our dear, lovely Bridegroom with all our heart, and all our mind, and all our soul and all our strength. We must tell Him a thousand times a day: Lord Jesus, I LOVE YOU! I still love You. I love You more today than yesterday and not as much as tomorrow. Lord keep me in this bridal love for You all the days of my life. When we love the Lord, His heart is duplicated in us, and we long and yearn for His coming, and our entire life becomes geared toward this. Eventually, we become the Shulamite and then the Bridegroom will return! (Also, check out hymn 1159.) 
  • A very good question, brother. Our sister answered for us already: the preparing is our living. We are preparing for His return through many experiences, just as the bride prepares for her wedding day. The garment must be readied, stitch by stitch beautified. But likewise, we need to ourselves be matured, for the Lord will come back to a bride who is "ready." If we are immature, the Lord cannot come back. The practical way, as our sister wrote well, is to have a loving and turning heart toward Him, to seek after His heart continually and to even live unto His appearing. This means a continual kind of living, allowing His heart to be our heart, and allowing Him to work in the inward and outward ways to make us more ready. This also would involve our personal prayer for this regard: "Lord, make me ready."
  • preaching the Gospel to all the nations....
  • We prepare and hasten the Lord's return by lovingly being in the enjoyment of the Lord continually.
  • We need to love Him and do things not for Him but with Him and through Him by telling to others about the One we love (Rev. 22:17 note 2) preaching the gospel requires also shepherding for His corporate expresion because He desires marry not a little girl but a Bride which will match Him.
  • The 2 greatest prophecy in the Bible are in Matthew 16:18 which says "...I will build My Church, and Rev. 22:7...."behold I come quickly.." Untill the Church is built, the Lord will still tarry. The church is built directly by the Head Christ and indirectly thru the members of His Body. We are the members of His Body, and for us to build the Church as the Kingdom of God, the gates of hades must be shut. Three main gates of hades frustrating the building are: the self, the soul life and the mind. And if we shut these three gates by taking up the keys of denying the self, taking up the cross, and losing the soul life through exercising to always turn to the spirit, the church will be built and the coming of the Lord will be hastened
  • Amen dear saints! Matthew 28:19-20
  • That's right, we really don't know yet, because we need to depend on Him for He is the One who will make the way and make the preparation on His returned. We don't have the power to make our own plan for His coming back but He has! Praise Him...
It is so wonderful to have such friends on Facebook! We can pursue the Lord, remind one another about His Word and His life, speak His word and open up to Him, share songs and hymns, and even ask questions that remind us to turn to Him - even on Facebook! How Wonderful!

The Lord's desire is to return soon. When? We don't know - but He says, I am coming soon! Therefore, we need to be those faithful slaves who are giving food to others at the appointed time and manage things in God's house in faithfulness (while preparing for His return in the long-run) and at the same time we need to be the virgins who gain oil in their lamps, eagerly awaiting the return of their Bridegroom to enter with Him at the feast (see Matt. 25). ... 

This is NOT a comprehensive and all-inclusive answer, but the answers given by the above listing is quite good. What do YOU think? How can we prepare ourselves for the Lord's return? How can we hasten His coming? Leave a comment below...
Lord, prepare us! Lord, grow in us! Lord, gain us! Make us the overcomers You need that will bring You back! O, Lord, how we long to see You again and even hasten Your return! We give ourselves to You, dear Lord, that we may be prepared!

1 comment:

  1. I just completed essentially about a year of Middle Age Training in Anaheim, so alot of my response is from my being dispensed with the riches. One of the blended brothers down there, quite eloquent and academic encouraged us, even charged us to pray every day of our lives, Eph3:16-19. Let have a go at it!! That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory to be strenghtened with power throuh His Spirit into the inner man that Christ would make His home in our hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend what is the breath length and height and depth, and to knnow the knowledge surpassing love of Christ(God,), that you may be filled unto the fullness of God.---According to the ministry, this is the heart of the heart of the heart of the divine revelation!! It mentions about our hearts, Christ making His home in it. Well, God does not want to live in a 5-star Hotel/Motel, where one occasionally hangs out while on a trip. But we have a problem, we don't want to give Him the full reign, the title deed to the house, so He has full access into all the rooms to do whatever He wants, even to "makeover". So what is the solution? Beholding---enjoying----falling in love----giving up-- eventually two wills becoming one!!! to be continued!!! see ya, md

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