December 19th, 2012
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Freedom's a Comin'!

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Opening Prayer

Eternal God, with all that’s within me, I bless You. Your ways are from of old; Your works are ever new.

Read Luke 17:20-37

[20] Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, [21] nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” [22] Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. [23] People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. [24] For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. [25] But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. [26] “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. [27] People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. [28] “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. [29] But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. [30] “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. [31] On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. [32] Remember Lot’s wife! [33] Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. [34] I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. [35] Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” [36] “Where, Lord?” they asked. He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“I am just an earthly, sinful father, and I love my kids. How could I not trust a heavenly, perfect Father who loves me infinitely more?” (Francis Chan).

Think Further

The language Jesus uses here is intended to convey a powerful, single idea: something big is coming. God lives in a realm outside our own. It’s invisible to us (20,21). His plans and purposes, worked out on a scale of centuries, are all too often lost to our sight. We forget what he has done in the past. We lose track of what he is doing in our present. We lose faith in what he has promised for our future. We stop trusting.

God’s silence, Jesus asserts, is not the silence of inaction. He is at work in hidden ways all around us, and he has set a day when that which is currently unseen will be visible to all (24). The image of lightning speaks of a single, global moment of illumination, when everything is seen for what it is. Jesus borrows Old Testament images–Noah, Lot and Lot’s wife (26,28,32)–to give a measure of how sudden and unexpected the coming of the Kingdom might be. All three stories involve the judgment of God. In all three, God’s intervention is stark and powerful, and the complacent are caught off guard. Attempts to make this passage (33,34) fit the profile of “the Rapture” are misguided–not least because the examples given show the wicked being swept away (27,29), not the redeemed being whisked away. This is not about God’s people being rescued from the earth; it is about God’s Kingdom coming to the earth. Jesus taught us to pray. “Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” because this is our hope and our expectation. It is not a vain hope. Don’t let a pause in God’s purposes fool you; he has not abandoned his plans, and he has not forgotten you.

Apply

What signs of God’s Kingdom do you see in the world? How will you react? Pray for it to fully come.

Closing prayer

Sovereign Lord, I want to be a part of Your Kingdom that is breaking in today as well as fully coming in the future.

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