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!

only the real water quenches my real thirst - One Meaningful Thing I Did Today(30-day challenge)

The MOST difficult thing to do in life is to REGULARLY do something that you know it's good and you should do it. For instance, blogging ONCE a day, as a "30-day challenge", together with the Lord, is not easy at all! There's the job I have to attend to every day, there's other things I need to personally take care of, there's the gym, there's the saints, there's the home meetings, there's the further coordination for upcoming events, there's the skype calls and skype coordination and skype prayer... - and then I need to write something before midnight today! O Lord Jesus.... As I was saying in a tweet today, I am still looking to the Lord as to what should I share today..

I love Pepsi. I don't like Coke, but I love Pepsi - it is sweet, fizzy, bubbly ;) and nice. I prefer Pepsi to Coke. Yet neither are not too good for health - so I need to keep the volume of Pepsi down... But I realized one thing - even though Pepsi is a nice beverage, it doesn't really quench your thirst! It gives you the fizz, the hype, the push to do something, it tastes sweet, but when it comes down to it, Pepsi(and any other fizzy drink / natural drink) doesn't really quench the thirst... And this observation brings me to today's,

One Meaningful Thing I Did Today - Only the Real Water Quenches My Real Thirst

Especially after a 30mins run on the cross-trainer at the gym, with a heart level way too much over the limit, on level 8 of "difficulty", you get thirsty. Yes, you sweat, you "loose water", so you definitely need to get some water in. So many times I chose to drink something slightly different than water - I shall not name the beverage, since, as many know, I like "mixing" drinks :) - which may have tasted good and got me hooked on it, but it didn't quench my thirst. After today's run at the gym I chose to drink water - and even though I had it not in a large quantity, I was satisfied!

 Water is really tasteless, colourless, it is not sweet, it is not "delicious", many times it is "stale" in the sense that it's not "fresh spring water"... It's not "exciting" to drink water, and water doesn't get you "hyped up". It's not very attractive(especially in the world today) to drink pure water. It's sometimes "boring" to drink water... that's why people choose to drink other things. [by all these things I'm not saying that there are not some people who love drinking water and love water, neither am I saying that there's something wrong with anything else but water. It's a principle I'm trying to put out and get to...]

It's the same with the Lord. Some people say, It's too simple and too "plain" to just call on the name of the Lord to be saved(Rom. 10:12) - maybe you need to do something difficult, you need to do some penance, you have to repent really really hard, to feel that you are very sorry, and even fast for a few days... and then the Lord will forgive you. The Bible says clearly that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness"(1 John 1:9). It's as simple as agreeing with the Lord when He shines on you and exposes you,

Amen, Lord, I agree - I have sinned. Forgive me and wash me with Your precious blood. I trust in You and not in myself. Amen!

And you are cleansed! It is the same with touching the Lord and being in His presence - you don't need to do some strange things like "going to the mountains to be alone with God and feel His presence", or "retreating in the desert to be closer to God". You don't even need to do a lot of physical effort or psychological research / introspective look so that you might find and touch God - "Whoever draws near to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him"(Heb 11:6) + "For the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all those who call on His name"(Rom. 10:13). It is as simple as calling on the name of the Lord,

O Lord Jesus!

and you touch Him! It is as simple and "plain" and "not exciting" and "not hyping you up" as opening your heart to the Lord - and you will get His presence! We are thirsty, just like the woman in John 4 - thirsty for "this water"(John 4:13). Whoever drinks of this water (career, money, golden futures, social ranking, good family, good husband or wife, good education, sports, etc - anything apart from God that we drink of and find delight in) will thirst again! But whoever drinks of the REAL Water - Christ Himself as the Spirit - he will by no means ever thirst again! I want this REAL WATER!

Today I realized that just as "I love drinking Pepsi thinking it will quench my thirst - but it doesn't!" I may tend to try to do other things than the simple practices of life (which need to be scheduled into my daily living) and I expect to be filled and satisfied, but I'm not! Only Christ satisfies, and only His way of redemption and salvation can bring us to drink of Him as the living water and be satisfied! Other waters - Christian Rock, Christian Hip-Hop, Christian music bands with all kinds of instruments, Christian drama, Christian pantomime, etc - all these "exciting things" outwardly really don't quench our thirst! Only the simple, pure, unadulterated, fine, nourishing, refreshing, renewing, healthy, flowing, and living Christ as the living water can actually quench our thirst!

No, Christian Rock music cannot quench my thirst! No, any R&B music or Pop Music cannot quench my deeper thirst! Not even classical music or jazz - no theater or movie, nothing of multimedia, no youtube movie... - nothing of the entertainment today can really really quench our thirst! No, a new gadget that comes out cannot satisfy my hunger! No human achievement and nothing physical or psychological really quenches the thirst in us! As simple and pure as it is, we need to drink of the Lord Jesus - as He said in John 7:37-39! At the end of a long feast, when supposedly the people were filled and satisfied, the Lord stood up and called all the ones who are thirsty to come to Him and drink! Just come to the Lord and drink!

Why drink of the "Pepsi" of the world when you can drink of the living "water" that Christ can offer you - and live, be refreshed, be renewed, grow in life, and be satisfied with the Lord - for real!?!