Wait for the Lord Jesus Christ

In addition to building ourselves up in the faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, we keep ourselves in God’s love by waiting for the return of Jesus. Human beings are hoping creatures. Our activities are shaped by our hopes and anticipations. For example, when we are sick, we hope to get well; we don’t anticipate chronic illness or death. When we go to school, we hope to learn marketable skills for a good job; we don’t anticipate unemployment.

But hope in the New Testament does not refer to expectation or desire, but rather to trust or assured confidence in that which is certain to happen. New Testament hope is never a vague optimism, it is a solid certainty. That is why in Titus 2:13 Paul called the Second Coming of Christ the blessed hope of the church. When Jude exhorted his readers to “wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life”, he was reminding his readers to expect Christ’s conclusion of their salvation at his Second Coming.

In contrast, the false teacher’s unsaved condition, false teaching, and disobedience to Christ would only merit the Lord’s severe judgment at his Second Coming. Some of our churches today rarely teach about the Second Coming. They focus on pursuing a perfect life of health and wealth in the here and now. Churchgoers are encouraged to settle for the best this world can give them.

In contrast to this, Jude exhorts his readers to focus their hearts and minds on their Christian hope that, based on the gospel truth of God’s grace and mercy for us displayed by Christ on the cross, one day we are going to live in God’s presence forever when Christ returns to this world the second time. Jude shows us that in the face of false teaching, our priority must be to allow God’s unconditional love for us to shape our thinking and our behaviour, individually and as a church community. We are a pilgrim people travelling through this world on our way home. One day, Christ will come again, and we will live in God’s presence for ever.

Reflect

Prayerfully evaluate what you are hoping for in this life. Are there priorities you need to change in light of our hope in the Second Coming of Christ? Ask God to empower you to make one small change this week.

This content was adapted from Stand up for the Gospel by Emmanuel Kwasi Amoafo. To discover more about getting the church back on track based on the New Testament book of Jude, read the whole book.