A Thought

“He was in the world and the world was made through Him, and yet the world did not know Him.  He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.”                   - John 1:10-11

The visions we have of the Day of the Lord, that Day when He will return to judge the world and call His own home, are big and grand and cataclysmic.  “Coming in clouds”, sending out the angels, and the other apocalyptic visions from The Revelation, Daniel, and Ezekiel seem to make it clear that those who did not believe will be fully, completely, and suddenly convinced; and those who believed in a concept but never fully embraced the Lord as Savior of the World will discover the Truth.  Advent teaches us to prepare always for that Day.

Yet Jesus also reminds us that He is already among us, and He very clearly tells us where He is and who best represents Him in the world even now: those who hunger, those who thirst, those who are naked, sick, and imprisoned (Matthew 25:35-36).  These will be the manner by which the faithful will be judged as “sheep” who followed the Great Shepherd, or “goats” who made their own way.  The Day of the Lord will finally and completely declare to the world those who did and did not receive Him not in a single moment but throughout our entire lives.

Remember today Whose you are.  You have been claimed, and a colossal price was paid for your redemption.  We must live to expect Him and so expect to live in Him.