Another time Jesus called us stewards was when He was giving a parable about watching for the second coming. This devotion looks at how we are to be prepared for Jesus to come as a thief in the night.
Nuggets
- If we are focusing on what is coming tomorrow instead of the chaos today, then we can prepare for His coming.
- We also have to prepare by living for Christ.
- We can only enter heaven when we are like God.
Faithful and Unfaithful Stewards
A Steward Gone Bad
As stewards, we are to be managing God’s activities here on earth. We know that there will be a completion date for those activities.
That will occur with Jesus’ second coming. Stewards have been instructed to be ready for His return.
In this devotion, we will start looking at being prepared for Jesus to come as a thief in the night. Since it got too long, the next devotion will be looking at how we remain faithful or unfaithful as we wait.
Let's Put It into Context #1
According to the Holman Bible Dictionary, stewardship is “utilizing and managing all resources God provides for the glory of God and the betterment of His creation.”
Resource
A steward is a person in a subordinate position to God who has been given the responsibility to manage resources for the purpose of expanding His kingdom.
Let's Put It into Context #2
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Lk. 12: 34 NASB)
Jesus had just been talking to the disciples about anxiety. It is really easy to get worried about something of which we don’t know the outcome.
Instead of worry, we should remember God’s provision. “Consider how the wildflowers grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these” (Lk. 12: 27 CSB).
Many would say that Jesus had a radical approach to eliminating worry. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys” (Lk. 12: 33 CSB).
Jesus was telling us to put it into perspective. We shouldn’t focus on this world, which is temporary. We need to focus on eternity.
Let's Put It into Context #3
“Therefore be alert, since you don’t know what day your Lord is coming. But know this: If the homeowner had known what time the thief was coming, he would have stayed alert and not let his house be broken into. This is why you are also to be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Mt. 12: 42-44 CSB)
Luke doesn’t really tell us the parable. Matthew did in Matthew 24: 42-44. This is all wrapped up in Jesus’ explaining to the disciples what the end times would be like.
Matthew gave us the parable. Luke gave us the application.
We’ve talked about a lot in the rest of Matthew 24. But we didn’t address these verses.
To read devotions in the How Do We Know If We Don’t Know series, click the appropriate button below.
Be Prepared
“Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves” (Lk. 12: 35-38 NASB)
First off, we have to talk about the wedding. It wasn’t like the weddings to which I am used to attending. Those, we go for a couple of hours, and we’re done.
That isn’t what Jesus is talking about here. Cox explained it when he wrote, “The festivities connected with an Eastern marriage were spread over many days, a week at least, sometimes a month. All the friends of the family were expected to put in an appearance, but only a select few remained to the end. The rest might come and go at any hour, on any day, that suited their convenience or pleasure.”
If we are focusing on what is coming tomorrow instead of the chaos today, then we can prepare. We don’t have to be caught off guard.
This all ties in with being watchful. Watchfulness is a continual conscious examination of ourselves and events so that we may follow God in all things.
We’ve talked about being watchful a number of times. We have to watch not only for when Satan tries to tempt us, but also for our opportunities to serve and the blessings God gives us. We have to watch the kind of company we are keeping.
Most importantly, disciples must remain alert to watch for Jesus’ return, not knowing when that will be. That is what Jesus was talking about in this passage, too.
To read a related devotion, click the appropriate button below.
Jesus knew He was going to go away, but He knew He was coming back again. He was trying to prepare His disciples — and us — for His return.
When we know something is coming, it is easier to prepare. When Mom was going through her cancer treatments, the chemo was harder on her because she had the radiation first. Long story short, she ended up asphyxiating and going into a comma.
Mom came out of it fine, but we thought we were going to lose her then. As bad as it was then, that helped us prepare for when she actually passed.
Dad, on the other hand, got up one morning thinking he had the flu. It ended up being a mild heart attack. The thing was, six hours after Mom called me to tell me he was okay but in the hospital, he had a big one and died. Nope, I wasn’t prepared for that.
Jesus told us the future so that we can be prepared. We have to prepare in a couple of different ways.
We need to fix our status of being spiritually dead. Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
The only way we can do that is if we want spiritual life. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
We also have to prepare by living for Christ. Even though we are changed to being spiritually alive at conversion, we still have the capacity to sin.
Spurgeon addressed it this way. He wrote, “… even if a man’s sins are pardoned, he would not be prepared to die if his nature were not renewed.”
That is why we go through sanctification. Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul beginning with regeneration and ending with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
If we aren’t on the sanctification road, we aren’t trying to change our character to be more like God — holy and righteous. Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and pure. Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments.
We can only enter heaven when we are like God. “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Rev. 21: 27 ESV).
No, we are not currently like God and won’t be on this earth. That is why Paul wrote, “Listen, I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed” (I Cor. 15: 51-52 CSB). We have to be prepared for Heaven.
We have to give evidence that we are putting our trust in God that He will change us to how we need to be. Trust is assurance that the promises of God are true.
The watchfulness has to be motivated by the love of the Lord. We have to want to be like Him.
We also have to feel the expectation along with the watchfulness. We have to have a certainly that Jesus is coming.
As a Thief
“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect” (Lk. 12: 39-40 NASB)
We think we would be more prepared if we knew the actual date and time of Jesus’ return. But would we really?
Can we spell p-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-i-o-n?
Jesus compared His coming to that of a thief in the night. But we lock our doors at night, don’t we, in order to deter said thief from gaining entrance?
But we also lock our door during the day to deter said thief’s brother from the same thing.
Carr made an interesting point. He reminded us that we live in the dark of the night until we are introduced to Jesus as the Light.
The promptings of the Holy Spirit call us out of the dark into the light. Once we ABCD and are in Christ, we are in the light.
How Jesus finds us watching will determine whether we are happy about His return or not. But that is consequences based on the decision we make on our own.
We will either be faithful or unfaithful stewards when Jesus returns. That will be the topic of discussion in the next devotion.
Father. You are a loving Father. You devised a plan of salvation so that we could be restored to You. That plan called for the death and resurrection of Your Son to pay for our sins. Soon, He will return to call us home. We long for that day. Lord, may He find us watching for Him, faithfully performing the duties You have given us. Amen.
What do you think?
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