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How Soon Will Jesus Return?

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The “last days” began with the first coming of Jesus (Hebrews 1:2). From the time of Jesus’s ascension to the closing of the New Testament canon, the apostles believed Jesus’s return would be “soon” (Acts 1:10–11;Revelation 22:20). They lived with their eyes to the skies. And this belief informed the way they instructed the early Christians to live. For example, Paul says,
This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. . . . For the present form of this world is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29, 31)
Now it’s been nearly two thousand years since Paul urgently put quill to papyrus and wrote those Spirit-inspired words. And here we are. The world has not yet passed away — but about a hundred human generations have. A “very short” time has turned out to be much longer than nearly everyone, except the Father, expected (Mark 13:32).
As a result, many of us struggle to feel the urgency Paul felt, and live like he instructed. How do we live in the last days that have lasted so long and may last for generations longer? The Bible addresses this question clearly so all Christians may know how to live without cynicism or apathy in these last days. We need to remember a few important truths.

Remember We Live in God-Time

The first truth to keep in mind is that God marks time differently than we do. Moses wrote, “A thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:4). And the apostle Peter wrote, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). It’s only been two God-days since Jesus ascended and Paul wrote.
The better we know our Bibles, the more we grasp that the Ancient of Days’s soon is typically not our soon (Daniel 7:9;Revelation 22:7). What seems slow to us is not slow to God. Nothing in the New Testament demands that these last days be fewer than they’ve been.
Yes, many people have said and still say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). Here we are duly warned that Jesus’s return will seem ridiculously delayed — but he is not late.

Remember the Bridegroom’s Delay

Jesus himself warned us of this. First, he listed off some signs he said must take place before he returned:
  • An accrual of very compelling, powerful false prophets who lead many astray on a scale large enough to be recognized by the church everywhere (Matthew 24:4–5, 11, 24–28);
  • A remarkable and frightening amount of natural and national calamities (Matthew 24:7–8);
  • An unprecedented level of persecution of Christians, along with an imminent threat of global human extinction (Matthew 24:21–22);
  • And the “gospel of the kingdom [would] be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations” (Matthew 24:14).
Jesus said he would not return until these (and other) conditions are met. Which is why he told the parable of the ten virgins. Jesus described the bridegroom as being “delayed” — so delayed that the wedding attendants “became drowsy” (Matthew 25:5). In other words, Jesus wanted us to expect his coming to take longer than expected.
And it’s important to remember that the Bridegroom “delays” out of unsurpassed love for his bride. Hear his heart: “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). The Bridegroom will not allow a single person who is part of his Bride to be abandoned. His is a patient, purposeful, passionate procrastination.

Remember Life Is Short

If Jesus does not return during our lifetimes, we’re all going to meet him soon — sooner than we expect. Most of us will find this meeting as surprising as suddenly seeing him in the clouds.
Listen to this sampling of the Bible’s descriptions of our lifespans: “a breath” (Job 7:7); “a few handbreadths” (Psalm 39:5); “grass” that lasts a day (Psalm 90:5–6); “smoke” (Psalm 102:3); “a passing shadow” (Psalm 144:4); “a [vanishing] mist” (James 4:14). We do not know whether our souls will be required of us tonight (Luke 12:20) or whether we will live to see next year (James 4:13–14).
If Jesus’s return is not “very short” to us, our lifespans will be — whether we live to be twenty or ninety. In these last days — the world’s or ours — we need to pray often that God would “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).Our days are infected with evil and often consumed with “toil and trouble” (Psalm 90:10); we reallyneed God’s wisdom to spend what brief time we have on what reallymatters most (Ephesians 5:15–17).

Remember the Fig Leaves

Jesus told another parable to help us to watch the signs of the times with discerning eyes.
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. (Matthew 24:32–33)
We may not know the day or the hour of Jesus’s return, but he expects us to watch for the signs he gave and discern them. He does not intend his coming to be a complete shock to us. He wants us to notice the changing of the leaves:
  • Have you noticed the proliferation of influential false prophets (not all religious)?
  • Have you noticed the scale of natural and national calamities over the past 120 years and the rising “fear and . . . foreboding of what is coming on the world” (Luke 21:25–26)?
  • Have you noticed the increasing levels of global hostility toward Christians as well as the increasing approval of the kinds of depravity Paul said would characterize people living in the last days (2 Timothy 3:1–5)?
  • Have you noticed the fresh reminders of the existent powers’ ability to eradicate humanity?
  • Have you noticed the unprecedented, nearly incredible advances of the gospel over the past 290 years — especially the past 120 years? There’s been nothing like the explosive growth of the Christian movement since 1900 in the history of religion — all the more amazing when we consider the ethnic, cultural, and geographical diversity of this growth.
Are you watching the leaves?

Watch, Pray, and Travel Light

“Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:44). Jesus meant for his return to feel potentially imminent in each generation, while also helping each generation anticipate his potential delay.
Jesus is coming back when the God-days are full, when the conditions are met, when his bride is ready, and when the summer leaves have reached their peak. It won’t be long before God’s soon is surprisingly soon to us. But even if we meet death before we meet the Lord in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17), we will meet him soon.
Living the last days now is not really any different than it was for the first-generation Christians. We stay ready the same way they were to stay ready:
  • We watch the signs.
  • We pray for laborers to be sent into the harvest (Luke 10:2) — and say with Isaiah, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8) — and pray for the Lord to return (Revelation 22:20).
  • We encourage one another with our hope of resurrection and the Lord’s return (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18).
  • We travel light. We are exiles and sojourners here. We must not encumber ourselves with unnecessary baggage and treasures here because our real homeland and our real Treasure is up ahead (Matthew 6:19–20). And that’s where we want our hearts to be (Matthew 6:21).
Four thousand years ago, our ancestors in the faith began to live like “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13). That was two thousand years beforeJesus came and launched the last days. And we who live two thousand years after he came are no less strangers and exiles, because we too “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). And we’re going to be there soon — sooner than we expect.

His Timing is Perfect

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Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may find grace for a well-timed help. (Hebrews 4:16, my literal translation)
I know this precious verse is usually translated, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” But that is a paraphrase — a true one — to show that God shows up just when we need him. But the literal focus is on how timely the help is.
All ministry is in the future — a moment away, or a month away, or a year, or a decade. We have ample time to fret about our inadequacy. When this happens, we must turn to prayer.
Prayer is the form of faith that connects us today with the grace that will make us adequate for tomorrow’s ministry. Timing really matters.
What if grace comes too early or comes too late? The traditional translation of Hebrews 4:16 does not make clear a very precious promise in this regard. We need a more literal rendering to see it. The promise is not merely that we find grace “to help in time of need,” but that the grace is well-timed by God.
The point is that prayer is the way to find future grace for a well-timed help. This grace of God always arrives from the “throne of grace” on time. The phrase “throne of grace” means that future grace comes from the King of the universe who sets the times by his own authority (Acts 1:7).
His timing is perfect, but it is rarely ours: “For a thousand years in [his] sight are but as yesterday when it is past” (Psalm 90:4). At the global level, he sets the times for nations to rise and fall (Acts 17:26). And at the personal level, “My times are in [his] hand” (Psalm 31:15).
When we wonder about the timing of future grace, we must think on the “throne of grace.” Nothing can hinder God’s plan to send grace when it will be best for us. Future grace is always well-timed.

When God’s Timing is Taking Too Long.

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We all want good things to happen in our lives, but too often we want it now…not later. When it doesn’t happen that way, we are tempted to ask, “When, God, when?” Most of us need to grow in the area of trusting God instead of focusing on the “when” question. If you’re missing joy and peace, you’re not trusting God. If your mind feels worn out all the time, you’re not trusting God.
The tendency to want to know about everything that’s going on can be detrimental to your Christian walk. Sometimes knowing everything can be uncomfortable and can even hurt you. I spent a large part of my life being impatient, frustrated and disappointed because there were things I didn’t know. God had to teach me to leave things alone and quit feeling that I needed to know everything. I finally learned to trust the One who knows all things and accept that some questions may never be answered. We prove that we trust God when we refuse to worry.
God wants us to live by discernment—revelation knowledge, not head knowledge. It’s difficult to exercise discernment if you’re always trying to figure everything out. But when you’re willing to say, “God, I can’t figure this out, so I’m going to trust You to give me revelation that will set me free,” then you can be comfortable in spite of not knowing. Trusting God often requires not knowing how God is going to accomplish what needs to be done and not knowing when He will do it. We often say God is never late, but generally He isn’t early either. Why? Because He uses times of waiting to stretch our faith in Him and to bring about change and growth in our lives.

Wait with Patience

We spend a lot of time in our lives waiting because change is a process. Many people want change, but they don’t want to go through the waiting process. But the truth is, waiting is a given—we are going to wait. The question is, are we going to wait the wrong or right way? If we wait the wrong way, we’ll be miserable; but if we decide to wait God’s way, we can become patient and enjoy the wait. It takes practice, but as we let God help us in each situation, we develop patience, which is one of the most important Christian virtues. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22). It’s developed only under trial, so we must not run from difficult situations. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing (James 1:4).
As we develop patience, the Bible says we finally feel completely satisfied—lacking nothing. Even our relationship with God involves progressive changes. My relationship with God is so much different now than it was in the early days of my Christian experience. It is not nearly as emotionally exciting…and yet it is better. Every change I’ve gone through has made me more mature, solid and well-grounded. We learn to trust God by going through many experiences that require trust. By seeing God’s faithfulness over and over, we let go of trusting ourselves, and gradually we place our trust in Him. Looking at it like this, it is easy to see how timing plays an important part in learning to trust God. If He did everything we asked for immediately, we would never grow and develop. Timing and trust work side by side.

Accept God’s Timing

God gives us hopes and dreams for certain things to happen in our lives, but He doesn’t always allow us to see the exact timing of His plan. Although frustrating, not knowing the exact timing is often what keeps us in the program. There are times when we might give up if we knew how long it was going to take, but when we accept God’s timing, we can learn to live in hope and enjoy our lives while God is working on our problems. We know that God’s plan for our lives is good, and when we entrust ourselves to Him, we can experience total peace and happiness.
The book of Genesis tells the story of Joseph, who waited many years for the fulfillment of the dream God had given him. He was falsely accused and imprisoned before the time came for him to do what God had shown him he was to do. Exodus 13:17-18 tells us that God led the Israelites the longer, harder way on their journey to the Promised Land because He knew they were not yet ready to go in. There had to be time for their training, and they had to go through some very trying situations. They wasted a lot of time wondering about God’s timing, but God never failed to take care of them and show them what He wanted them to do. The same is true in our lives. It was many years after I received my call from God in February of 1976 before I finally began to see major fulfillment of what God had called me to do. God’s training period simply requires us to do what He tells us to do when He tells us to do it…without questioning or trying to figure everything out.

Learn to Rely on God

Proverbs 16:9 says, A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure. Proverbs 20:24says, Man’s steps are ordered by the Lord. How then can a man understand his way? When God directs our paths, He sometimes leads us in ways that don’t make sense to us so we’re not always going to understand everything. If we try to reason out everything, we will experience struggle, confusion and misery—but there is a better way.Proverbs 3:5-6 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. This sounds so simple, yet too many people make the mistake of trying to figure everything out themselves. Most of us have spent our lives trying to take care of ourselves, but when we accept Christ as our Savior, we must learn to trust our lives to His care. When we do, we can say with the psalmist, …I trusted in, relied on, and was confident in You, O Lord; I said, You are my God. My times are in Your hands…(Psalm 31:14-15).
First Peter 5:5 tells us that …God sets Himself against the proud (the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful)—[and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble. Anyone who thinks they’re a self-made man or woman has a rude awakening coming because Jesus said, …apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing (John 15:5). Humility is a covering that draws the help of God into our lives to protect us. When we humble ourselves by saying, “God, I don’t know what to do, but I’m trusting You,” God gets in gear to help us. God won’t allow us to succeed at anything unless we’re leaning and relying on Him. But when we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, in due time, He will exalt us (see 1 Peter 5:6). “Due time” is God’s time, when God knows we’re ready, not when we think we’re ready. The sooner we understand and accept that, the sooner God can work His plan in our lives.

From Seedtime to Harvest

Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us: To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven. This lets us know that we all don’t live in the same season at the same time. You should never be jealous of someone who is enjoying harvest while you’re still in the planting season. Remember, they had to go through a season of planting just as you are. Seeing the results they are enjoying should be an encouragement to you. Understand and trust that God is doing the very best for you in your present season. Seedtime represents learning the will of God. Each time I choose God’s will instead of my own, I’m planting a good seed that will eventually bring a harvest in my life. If you want to be victorious, you cannot afford to get pulled into the world’s system, doing what you feel like doing. James 1:21 tells us what we should do: …get rid of all uncleanness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a humble (gentle, modest) spirit receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted [in your hearts] contains the power to save your souls.
Your soul is your mind, your will and your emotions. When the Word gets rooted in there and begins to change your mind, it begins to heal your emotions and turn your will away from self-will and onto doing the will of God. Living out of one’s own soul is equivalent to staying in the wilderness. When my flesh is finally crucified, and I get out of my soul and into doing the will of God, that’s when I enter the promised land. The promised land is knowing who you are in Christ, knowing how to fellowship with Him, enjoying His presence, and having peace, contentment and joy. Between seedtime and harvest comes a time of waiting. After a seed is planted, the heat, moisture and pressure of the ground finally cause the outer hull to crack open. Then roots shoot down, digging their way through the ground. It takes time for this to happen, and it takes place underground. Above the ground, you can’t tell anything is happening. That’s the way our lives are. After we plant seeds of obedience, we feel like nothing is happening, but all kinds of things are happening inside where we can’t see. And like the seed that finally bursts through the ground with a beautiful green shoot, our seeds of obedience finally break forth into a beautiful manifestation of God in our lives.
When harvest time comes, the desires of your heart begin to manifest—bondages fall off of you and you see your dreams come to pass. You see your kids changing and your family getting saved.
Prosperity, favor, promotion, honor, and all kinds of good things come out in the open where they can be seen. In harvest time, more than ever before, you hear from God, you enjoy His presence, and you’re led by the Spirit. Blessings begin to chase you down the street, and joy and calm delight become your normal mood. Are you tired of waiting for harvest time in your life? Are you frustrated, crying out, “When, God, when?” Then you need to understand that God’s timing is often a mystery. He doesn’t do things on our timetable. Yet His Word promises that He will not be late, not one single day. But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!(Habakkuk 2:3).
God causes things to happen at exactly the right time! Your job is not to figure out when, but to make up your mind that you won’t give up until you cross the finish line and are living in the radical, outrageous blessings of God! The more you trust Jesus and keep your eyes focused on Him, the more life you’ll have. Trusting God brings life. Believing brings rest. So stop trying to figure everything out, and let God be God in your life.

Procrastination: A scientific Guide on how to stop Procrastination.

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it becomes easier to avoid procrastination. One of the best ways to bring future rewards into the present moment is with a strategy known as temptation bundling.
Temptation bundling is a concept that came out of behavioral economics research performed by Katy Milkman at The University of Pennsylvania. Simply put, the strategy suggests that you bundle a behavior that is good for you in the long-run with a behavior that feels good in the short-run.
The basic format is: Only do [THING YOU LOVE] while doing [THING YOU PROCRASTINATE ON].
Here are a few common examples of temptation bundling:
  • Only listen to audiobooks or podcasts you love while exercising.
  • Only get a pedicure while processing overdue work emails.
  • Only watch your favorite show while ironing or doing household chores.
  • Only eat at your favorite restaurant when conducting your monthly meeting with a difficult colleague.
This article covers some specific exercises you can follow to figure out how to create temptation bundling ideas that work for you.

Option 2: Make the Consequences of Procrastination More Immediate

There are many ways to force you to pay the costs of procrastination sooner rather than later. For example, if you are exercising alone, skipping your workout next week won’t impact your life much at all. Your health won’t deteriorate immediately because you missed that one workout. The cost of procrastinating on exercise only becomes painful after weeks and months of lazy behavior. However, if you commit to working out with a friend at 7 a.m. next Monday, then the cost of skipping your workout becomes more immediate. Miss this one workout and you look like a jerk.
Another common strategy is to use a service like Stickk to place a bet. If you don’t do what you say you’ll do, then the money goes to a charity you hate. The idea here is to put some skin in the game and create a new consequence that happens if you don’t do the behavior right now.

Option 3: Design Your Future Actions

One of the favorite tools psychologists use to overcome procrastination is called a “commitment device.” Commitment devices can help you stop procrastinating by designing your future actions ahead of time.
For example, you can curb your future eating habits by purchasing food in individual packages rather than in the bulk size. You can stop wasting time on your phone by deleting games or social media apps. (You could alsoblock them on your computer.)
Similarly, you can reduce the likelihood of mindless channel surfing by hiding your TV in a closet and only taking it out on big game days. You can voluntarily ask to be added to the banned list at casinos and online gambling sites to prevent future gambling sprees. You can build an emergency fund by setting up an automatic transfer of funds to your savings account. These are all examples of commitment devices that help reduce the odds of procrastination.

Option 4: Make the Task More Achievable

As we have already covered, the friction that causes procrastination is usually centered around starting a behavior. Once you begin, it’s often less painful to keep working. This is one good reason to reduce the size of your habits because if your habits are small and easy to start, then you will be less likely to procrastinate.
One of my favorite ways to make habits easier is to useThe 2-Minute Rule, which states, “When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.” The idea is to make it as easy as possible to get started and then trust that momentum will carry you further into the task after you begin. Once you start doing something, it’s easier to continue doing it. The 2–Minute Rule overcomes procrastination and laziness by making it so easy to start taking action that you can’t say no.
Another great way to make tasks more achievable is to break them down. For example, consider the remarkable productivity of the famous writer Anthony Trollope. He published 47 novels, 18 works of non-fiction, 12 short stories, 2 plays, and an assortment of articles and letters. How did he do it? Instead of measuring his progress based on the completion of chapters or books, Trollope measured his progress in 15-minute increments. He set a goal of 250 words every 15 minutes and he continued this pattern for three hours each day. This approach allowed him to enjoy feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment every 15 minutes while continuing to work on the large task of writing a book.
Making your tasks more achievable is important for two reasons.
  1. Small measures of progress help to maintain momentum over the long-run, which means you’re more likely to finish large tasks.
  2. The faster you complete a productive task, the more quickly your day develops an attitude of productivity and effectiveness. <a alt="See Footnote 3" class="footnote-button" data-footnote-content="

    Journalist Oliver Burkeman summarizes my thoughts by saying, “When I get straight down to something really important early in the morning, before checking email, before interruptions from others, it beneficially alters the feel of the whole day: once interruptions do arise, they’re never quite so problematic.”

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I have found this second point, the speed with which you complete your first task of the day, to be of particular importance for overcoming procrastination and maintaining a high productive output day after day.

III. Being Consistent: How to Kick the Procrastination Habit

Alright, we’ve covered a variety of strategies for beating procrastination on a daily basis. Now, let’s discuss some ways to make productivity a long-term habit and prevent procrastination from creeping back into our lives.

Blessings Beyond our Dreams.

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We live in the land of dreamers.
You’ve seen this before: The biggest impact, as the spiel goes, comes from the biggest dreams, and therefore, if you want your life to really count, you need to broaden the horizons in your mind. Our deficiencies are mainly in our expectations, not our competencies. Think bigger. Invest your best in what yields the maximum payoff. And then, if really true to form, there will come a string of words like “greatness,” “leadership,” and “influence” — all focused on you and the good you could be doing.
When it’s sincere and given the right qualifications, big-dream messages like this are wonderfully inspiring. We shouldn’t shun the practical wisdom of good old-fashioned industry; we should seek to listen, to learn, to grow. And at the same time, when advice like this is at its worst, and when we are at our most naïve, we’ll digest faux-Christian precepts as if they were Scripture and mistake the favor of God to be in all that’s new and flashy. Implicit in it all — if our hearts are dark enough to hear it (and they are) — is not so much an encouragement that we strive to make the world a better place, but that we strive to be rock stars. That’s the Kool-Aid. That’s the dark side.
And if we’re not careful, we’ll think that God mainly cares about us gaining followers and doing action, that mainly he just doesn’t want you to sell yourself short, or waste your energy on low-impact drivel. We’ll think that God’s real blessing is found in our giftedness, in what we’re able to build and where we’re able to go.
But that’s not true.

Getting to the Great

Undeniably, God wants us to do great things in his name, except it really matters how we define “great,” and what we’re actually looking for in it.
“Great” probably isn’t as glorious as you imagine, and rest assured, you won’t be the more blessed having arrived there. In fact, for those men who want to change the world, what you might need most is a wife who wants you home for dinner.

Men who want to change the world need a wife who wants them home for dinner.

Somewhere in the stuff like that is where you’ll find God’s blessing.
Like in an infant whose diaper needs changing, and a toddler who lives for your attention — atoddler, not an audience. The real blessing isn’t found behind shiny platforms, but in the garbage bag that must be taken out, the one that has a little hole in the bottom, that leaks a trail of some unidentified substance from the kitchen to the front door, demanding an extra five minutes of your time to retrace your steps on hands and knees with a paper towel, wiping up the mess, leaving the living room a better place.
There is God’s favor, there in the mundane, when we’re stuck between two worlds, seated with Jesus in the heavenly places and bent down here cleaning floors. There is where God smiles on his children.

When You Know

The greatest blessings in life aren’t found in being a great leader, or a great communicator, or a great pastor. The greatest blessings are found in being human before the face of God — a human forgiven and righteous in Christ. Didn’t he say that to us? “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
This kind of blessing is much more quiet than the glitz we think we crave, indeed so quiet that we usually miss it, and we’d only long for it if it were gone. It’s the deep blessing that too easily evades us, the blessing that knows what it feels like to be woken up before sunrise by the sounds of a summer thunderstorm — thunder so loud that it makes you stretch your hand over your heart to feel how fast it’s beating, and then look beside you at a woman more precious than jewels, and then hear, from the doorway of your bedroom, in the froggy voice of a frightened four-year-old, “Daddy, I’m scale’wd.” So you pull back the covers and let him listen to the thunder with you for a while, thinking, as he buries his head in the pillow, here is a soul — a soul! God, make him a great man.
And you know in that moment that the greatness you’re asking for is some semblance of the emotion you feel right then. No one else might get it, but you know. Here, where you never expected it, here is greatness, hereis leadership, here is influence.
Then you whisper, praying in this land of dreamers: Bless him like this.

Fighting to be a Peacemaker.

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World War I was not good to the world. No one wanted anything like that to happen again. So in 1928, leaders from the United States and 14 other countries, including France and Germany, gathered in Paris to sign the Kellogg-Briand Treaty renouncing war and calling on nations to resolve disputes through pacifist means.
In his statement from the east room of the White House in July 1929, President Herbert Hoover announced, “I dare predict that the influence of the Treaty for the Renunciation of War will be felt in a large proportion on all future international acts.” Within just 12 years, every nation that signed the Kellogg-Briand Treaty was engaged in World War II.
Declaring peace—and even desiring peace—are much easier than achieving peace.
The fight to make peace
Few of us are asked to ratify international peace treaties, but all of us understand the challenge of strained relationships. At times, we find ourselves in the middle of the conflict. At other times, we are on the outside looking in. Either way, the faithful Christian has a responsibility to make peace, but making peace often requires more of a fight than we first expect.
When Jesus said, “The peacemakers are blessed, for they will be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9), he was not encouraging us to play the pacifist by sweeping problems under the proverbial rug. That is the work of peacekeeping, not peacemaking. Peacekeeping appeases the loudest, rudest voice in the room just to quiet an argument. Peacekeeping settles for injustices because the work of justice is simply too much trouble.
God condemned that kind of triviality when he said, “They have treated My people’s brokenness superficially, claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:14). Declaring peace is easier than making it.
Our first conflict
Perhaps the reason for that is the personal nature of war and peace. Our first conflict is not with the people around us but with the God who created us. He loves us, but our sin is an offense against God and puts a distance between him and us. Although we may try to close the gap, the only way to make things right is to completely remove the offense.
We talk about making peace with God, but he never expects us to make peace with him. Instead, through Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, he removed our sin and replaced it with his righteousness. Therefore, it is by grace through faith that our offense is removed and reconciliation with God is achieved. We do not make things right. Instead, we can have peace with God because Jesus did the essential work of reconciliation on our behalf.
And the peace we have with God then produces the peace of God in the hearts of his people. Notice these words from the apostle Paul, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7). These were not trite words meant to minimize a problem. Paul wrote them from a prison cell to believers who were facing pressure and persecution of their own.
When we have peace with God, the peace of God defends us against fear. And the peace of God shows us how to thank him in everything because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God ever again.
The pursuit of peace with man
It is from this place of reconciliation with God that believers do the work of true peacemaking in the world. Christians are the benefactors of God’s mercy, which gives us a ministry of mercy to others. We understand that human conflict is not primarily ethical, political or relational. Instead, it is theological. So real peacemaking invites others to the same cross of Christ that rescued us.
Again, Paul wrote, “Everything is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:18) While relational conflict is a glaring apologetic of the universal need for the gospel, the peacemaker does the work of the evangelist by personally testifying to the peace of God found in Jesus his Son.  
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the Sunday before his crucifixion, he visited the temple court where he found vendors selling temple sacrifices for ridiculous profits. He turned their tables over and threw them out as he said, “It is written, My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:46).
Sometimes we interpret this moment as Jesus’ temper tantrum, perhaps to justify our own propensity to outbursts of anger. But Jesus did not throw a temper tantrum. Instead, he confronted the sinful actions of people who were hurting others by making it harder for them to know and worship God.
Everyone else had spent years living with the abuse and looking the other way. But peacemakers cannot look the other way. Just as Jesus disrupted the business of these vendors, peacemakers roll up our sleeves and take action on behalf of hurting people.
Jesus knew peacemaking would cost him, but peace was worth it. We do not step into the conflict because we are offended. We act because people need to hear the good news that God loves them, Jesus died for them, and they can have peace with God forever.
So peacemakers are not bullies looking for a fight, but neither are peacemakers appeasers who sit back while injustice oppresses the weak or discourages the fallen. Peacemakers speak the truth in love and then act with courageous mercy to make peace where there is no peace.
Some people suggest that Jesus is an anti-war pacifist. That is not true. Jesus is anti-death. He waged war on sin so that we could have life. And when Jesus said peacemakers are “sons of God,” he was saying, “As followers of Jesus, this is our family business. This is who we are, and this is what we do together for the glory of the Father.”  So, more than merely declaring peace, let’s fight to make peace around us.

When the future you planned for never comes.

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Before we turned 32, my wife and I said goodbye to our golden years — and to the second half we had hoped for. The one where our kids, deeply committed to the Lord, finally grow up and leave college, giving us long-awaited margin and freedom to serve the church more deeply, relocate, and travel together.
Our precious son Matthew has autism. His diagnosis changed our family’s future forever. Matthew will not go off to school, get married, or do all the other things we typically hope for our children. At a time where we were hoping to launch him into the world for Christ, we need to have him declared legally “incompetent” so we can make decisions on his behalf. But the hardest losses are unseen, and we still grieve not truly knowing, and being known by, the person we thought he’d be.
While we know this is God’s best for us, it’s still very hard and can bring us to tears on any given day, often without warning. The next season of our lives is going to be messy, unpredictable, and far more restrictive than we imagined on the day he was born.
We know we are not alone. Many of you are facing your own challenges as you look ahead. A failed, or cold, marriage. Physical limitations that make life painful and slow. Children who aren’t walking with Jesus. Aging parents who now need you to parent them. Work that pays the bills but offers little else. Yet even if the journey ahead looks bleak, God invites us to find deep joy in him, often through stories like Job’s.

What to Do When All Goes Wrong

We can’t be sure how old Job was when calamity found him, but he was old enough to have ten children, and be known as “the greatest of all the people of the east” (Job 1:3). He was on top of the world until disasters struck, and he wasn’t. In a matter of minutes, he lost his property and wealth (Job 1:15–17), children (Job 1:19), health (Job 2:7), and his wife’s support (Job 2:9). All that remained were his life, and God. His second half wasn’t going to be anything like his first.
But Job’s life offers us massive hope when our own futures seem to veer off course. Here are three lessons to increase our joy in God, even when storm clouds loom on our horizon.

1. Don’t look back and obsess about why you’re suffering.

When our future looks grim, it’s easy to look back and become consumed with why we’re suffering. To question whether better choices might have led to a different, happier path forward.
After Matthew’s painful diagnosis, I wondered if stubborn defects in my character had played a part in his condition. At the time, I had just finished seminary and still had a fairly academic faith. Did I need a serious dose of reality — in the form of Matthew’s autism — to prepare me for the pastorate? Day and night, new possibilities pressed in on my conscience and made a dark future feel even darker.
Job, “blameless and upright,” certainly did not cause his suffering (Job 1:1). But he and his friends didn’t know that, and they tortured themselves trying to determine what went wrong as they faced his new reality. When suffering derails our future, we should repent of any known sin and consider that God may be disciplining us. Usually, though, we simply don’t know why we’re suffering. We’re not supposed to, which frees us to rest in God’s sovereign care.

2. Remember that God doesn’t owe us the future we wanted.

Like I did, many of us quietly assume our second halves will glide toward a predictable, carefree retirement. When God rewrites our story, we can get angry and demand a rationale. God has never fully explained Matthew’s autism to us, and he never fully explained Job’s suffering to him. He probably won’t fully explain yours — at least this side of glory — either. He doesn’t owe us that.
After the initial shock of our son’s diagnosis passed, the implications for our future began to sink in. We felt despondent as we realized Matthew would never get married, have children, or possess the ability to share his heart with us. Overwhelmed with these realities, my wife took a weekend away and read through the entire book of Job. As she reached the part where God shows up, her perspective began to change.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” (Job 38:4)
God reminded my wife she was a creature who simply couldn’t comprehend God’s purposes for Matthew, or why our future wouldn’t follow the usual script. While God didn’t change the forecast, he transformed my wife’s perspective on it by reorienting her toward his majesty and loving care. When we truly learn that God is both sovereign and good, we can open our hands, without resentment, to the future of his choosing rather than our own.

3. Bring your confusing, frustrating future before the King.

As we truly come to terms with the limitations God places on our future, it’s natural for our thoughts and emotions to bounce all over the place. I remember the day we discovered Matthew’s yearly therapy costs would approach half of my salary. And then, learning our insurance company wouldn’t cover them. In one moment, I would experience deep anger and resentment toward God, then in the next a desperate hunger for forgiveness and faith.
In his distress, Job accused God of wronging him and withholding justice (Job 19:6). But in the next breath, he erupts with this beautiful confession:
“I know that my Redeemer lives,
     and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
     yet in my flesh I shall see God.” (Job 19:25–26)
When we’re struggling with the rocky path God has placed before us, we don’t need to pretend we don’t struggle. God invites us to bring our sorrows and confusion to our Father. As Paul Miller puts it, “The only way to come to God is by taking off any spiritual mask. The real you has to meet the real God.”

The Coming of the Lord

You may be thinking, Job’s suffering was worse than mine, but his story had a happy ending. God gave him back everything he lost. That’s never going to happen for me.You may be right. Often, God orchestrates deep losses that are never restored in our lifetime. That’s where we need to look beyond Job’s story — and frankly, our own stories — to Jesus.
Jesus endured unparalleled suffering and shame by keeping his focus squarely on “the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). His unhappy ending wasn’t really the end. And your second half, no matter how unhappy, won’t be the final word for you, either.
While we persevere in suffering like Job (James 5:11), we’re waiting with him for “the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7–9), when God will transform the future we’re dreading and everything that caused it. One day soon, I’m going to have a long, heartfelt talk with Matthew, and the sorrows still ahead will fade away. In the twinkling of an eye, your bleak future will be transformed, too. Can you picture it?
At that time, as C.S. Lewis puts it, we’ll begin “Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

God moves in a mysterious way.

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New Year’s Day, 1773, marked a decade since depression nearly snatched away William Cowper’s life.
The mental agony tortured him so severely ten winters prior that he was locked up in St. Alban’s insane asylum after a botched suicide attempt. While there, he stumbled upon a Bible that the asylum’s Christian director had strategically left open. His eyes fell upon Romans 3:23–26, and the glory of Jesus Christ chased the shadows from his soul.
But by the beginning of 1773, successive blows had left Cowper staggering. His brother died in 1770, followed by two of his cousins the following year. In 1772, neighbors’ whispers suggested that Cowper’s relationship with his landlady was something short of innocent. The grief and the slander soon gathered into clouds too dark for his sanity. And so, as Cowper walked through the fields after church 246 years ago today, Cowper “was struck by a terrible premonition that the curse of madness was about to fall on him again” (John Newton, 217).
But before night fell on Cowper’s soul, he sat in the light of his remaining sanity, took up his pen, and wrote a hymn that has strengthened generations of staggering saints through their various shadows.

Take Courage

Cowper’s hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” is a song for every saint who sits on the edge. It is a guide for all who do not see fresh hopes rising over the horizon of the new year. It is a confession of faith in the face of darkness — one that flickers with enough light to carry us through whatever midnights this year brings.
At the heart of the hymn is a simple exhortation: “Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.” Take courage. Take courage when the clouds come thundering toward you. Take courage when the coming days seem covered in shadow. Take courage when you cannot understand God’s ways.
But why, we ask in the valley, should we take courage? Throughout the rest of the hymn, Cowper gives his reasons.

1. God moves in a mysterious way.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
As Cowper wrote his hymn, God’s ways confounded him. The God who had rescued Cowper from the storm of mental instability was now sending him back in, where Cowper would feel like he was “scrambling always in the Dark, among rocks and precipices without a guide, but with an enemy ever at my heels, prepared to push me headlong” (Letters and Prose Writings, IV:234). We can understand why he would begin his hymn with the famous line “God moves in a mysterious way.”
But for Cowper, “God moves in a mysterious way” was a statement of faith, not despair. Cowper knew from Scripture that God rarely performs his wonders in lands of comfort and ease. More often, God delivers his people from one trouble only to usher them into another: he delivers us from Egypt, and then leads us to the shores of the Red Sea (Psalm 77:19). “He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.”
Do not be dismayed when God’s ways bewilder you. Instead, take courage. Remember with Cowper that you are in the company of many trusting saints. You are walking with Abraham and Sarah, waiting decades for a son (Genesis 17:15–21). You are traveling with David through the valley of the shadow (Psalm 23:4). You are watching with Jeremiah as Jerusalem goes up in flames (Jeremiah 21:10). You are lying with John the Baptist beneath the executioner’s sword (Matthew 14:1–12). You are weeping with Mary Magdalene outside the tomb of Jesus (John 20:11–15).
We do not need to grasp all that God is doing when we find ourselves in the middle of his mysterious ways. In the end, God will show that his ways, so high above our own (Isaiah 55:8), were nevertheless perfect (Psalm 18:30). “God is his own interpreter,” Cowper reminds us later in the hymn. And when the time is right, “He will make it plain.”

2. The clouds you dread are full of mercy.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Cowper did not downplay the anguish of depression or any of our other afflictions. He did not claim that, because of Christ, the children of God stride unfeeling through the thorns of this cursed world. He was willing to write in a letter to a friend that depression had thrust him into “the belly of this Hell, compared with which Jonah’s was a palace, a temple of the living God” (Letters and Prose Writings, II:83).
Nevertheless, Cowper’s hymn does more than give a voice to our distress. It also lends us the eyes of faith to look ahead at the storm clouds of our sorrows, no matter how dreaded, and to recognize them as the messengers of God’s mercy.
“Dreaded clouds” are never the final horizon for the people of God. In the end, the barren couple holds a baby in their arms (Genesis 21:1–3). The sun rises over the valley of the shadow (Psalm 23:6). Jerusalem hears again the sound of a song (Isaiah 62:1–5). The martyr awakes with a resurrected body (1 Corinthians 15:53–55). The stone rolls away from the tomb (John 20:16–18).
Take courage. The clouds that cover you this year may be darker than any you have yet known. They may linger long. They may seem to blot out the sun. But God knows how to take even these clouds, and through them work wonders so marvelous, so unlooked for, that they leave us on our knees in worship.

3. God’s purposes will ripen fast.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.
Toward the end of the hymn, Cowper leaves us with an assurance: God’s purposes “will ripen fast.” Very soon now, the sun will scatter these dreaded clouds, and we will stand upon the dry land of God’s goodness with everlasting joy on our heads.
In the moment, of course, God’sfast may feel like a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8). The depression that fell on Cowper in 1773 covered him until his death in 1800 — a 27-year darkness. John Newton, in his funeral sermon for Cowper, preached from the passage about the burning bush (Exodus 3:2–3), because, as he put it, Cowper “was indeed a bush in flames for 27 years.”
Can we say that 27 years in the flames was a fast affliction? Only if we, with Cowper, set 27 years next to 27 million years, and allow eternity to adjust our scales. From the standpoint of forever, no calamity can befall us this year that will not be a “light momentary affliction . . . preparing for us an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). For the moment, we taste only the bitter bud. Soon, we will see that heaven’s soil knows how to turn every bud into a flower whose beauty we cannot imagine.
Later in his funeral sermon, Newton agreed with Cowper’s sense of fast. “He was one of those who came out of great tribulation,” Newton said. “He suffered much here for 27 years, but eternity is long enough to make amends for all.”
Eternity is long enough to make amends for all — all the evil that has fallen on us so far in this life, and any evil that will fall on us this year. So take courage. Today, we are one year closer to the land where the skies are always clear, where flowers cover the hillsides, and where every tearstained face feels the tender touch of Jesus Christ.

How can I be filled with the Holy spirit?

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Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.(Romans 15:4)
How can we be filled with the Holy Spirit? How can we experience an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our church and ourselves that fills us with indomitable joy and frees us, and empowers us, to love those around us in ways so authentic that they are won to Christ?
Answer: Meditate day and night upon the incomparable, hope-giving promises of God. AsRomans 15:4 shows us, that’s the way Paul kept his heart full of hope and joy and love. “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
The full assurance of hope comes from meditating on the promises of God’s word. And this does not contradict the sentence nine verses later that says that the Holy Spirit gives us hope (Romans 15:13). This is because the Holy Spirit is the divine author of Scripture. His word is the means of his work. It is no contradiction that the way he fills us with hope is by filling us with his own word of promise.
Hope is not some vague emotion that comes out of nowhere, like a stomachache. Hope is the confidence that the stupendous future promised to us by the word of the Spirit is going to really come true. Therefore, the way to be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with his word. The way to have the power of the Spirit is to believe the promises of his word.
For it is the word of promise that fills us with hope, and hope fills us with joy, and joy overflows in the power and freedom to love our neighbor. And that is the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Can the Unregenerate Heal The Sick?

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Have you ever wondered how the unregenerate could say to Jesus on the judgment day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” (Matthew 7:22). Could this power have been real, and from God, and yet not be a sign of new birth? I think so.
Consider the way Jonathan Edwards describes how the Holy Spirit works differently in the godly and the ungodly.
There is this difference; the Spirit of God in acting in the soul of a godly man, exerts and communicates himself there in his own proper nature. Holiness is the proper nature of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit operates in the minds of the godly, by uniting himself to them, and living in them, and exerting his own nature in the exercise of their faculties.
The Spirit of God may act upon a creature, and yet not in acting communicate himself. The Spirit of God may act upon inanimate creatures; as “The Spirit moved upon the face of the waters,” in the beginning of the creation [Genesis 1:2]: so the Spirit of God may act upon the minds of men, many ways, and communicate himself no more than when he acts upon an inanimate creature.
For instance, he may excite thoughts in them, may assist their natural reason and understanding, or may assist other natural principles, and this without any union with the soul, but may act, as it were, as upon an external object. But as he acts in his holy influences, and spiritual operations, he acts in a way of peculiar communication of himself; so that the subject is thence denominated “spiritual.” (from “A Divine and Supernatural Light”)
In other words, God could enable a person to heal the sick or cast out a demon in the same way God makes the wind blow or the waves be still, but without communicating any of his peculiar holiness. This is why supernatural phenomena are of secondary importance in discerning the hand of God. Christ-exalting, self-abasing holiness is primary.