And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. 2 Thessalonians 3:5
An old friend once told me the best way to kill time is to work it to death. How do you pass the time when waiting for something important to happen? For some of us, that time is spent in idle talk, meaningless actions, and impatient complaints. Wouldn’t it be better to be doing something worthwhile during the wait? That’s what our text is telling us to do.
What does Paul mean by the patient waiting for Christ? He knew that the Thessalonians Christians were eagerly looking forward to the Rapture, the coming to the air of the Lord Jesus to take them to Heaven. Just like we are doing today as we see the signs all around us that suggest His coming for us could be very soon. Sometimes, when we encounter difficult circumstances, we long that our Lord’s coming would extract us from those circumstances. That would be wonderful. But for almost two millennia the Lord’s people have been passing through such circumstances and such longing for escape. What have they done during such times?
Paul uses the word ‘patient’. Let us not be like the man who prayed, ‘Please, Lord, give me patience, and please hurry, I need it now’. As eagerly as we anticipate the Lord’s coming, we need to use that anticipation wisely. We need to be maintaining a good testimony as Christians. We need to be involved in the work that our Lord has given us. We need to be praying for precious lost souls around us to be saved. We need to allow our glorious hope to encourage other Christians.
Our patient waiting for Christ is to be a vibrant and active waiting that actually accomplishes something for our Lord. -Jim MacIntosh
Here is the link to the video of this message: https://youtu.be/1fiODAWOsBA