"Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around Him. He shall call to the heaven from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people. "Gather My saint together to Me, those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice" (Psalm 50:1-3).
It’s no secret that Jesus is coming soon. The greatest event in all the Bible is the grand reunion between God and His people. In fact, you might say, it’s the pinnacle of prophecy. For one out of every 11 verses in the New Testament speaks of Christ’s glorious return. It’s the promise that has fueled our faith more than any other. To see Jesus with our own eyes! To finally be together with our blessed Savior, for whom we have waited so long!
And for everyone who's accepted the new covenant, sealed by the blood of Christ, this is the day they yearn for. It colors everything they see with a heavenly glow. “The world loses all attraction to them, for they seek a better country, an eternal world, a life that is to continue through never-ending ages. This is the theme of our thought and conversation. The Word of God becomes exceedingly precious. They discern spiritual things. They rejoice in “the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13)” (In Heavenly Places, pg. 95).
But the hope of the 2nd coming is much more than a promise. It’s a life-changing experience right now! Or at least it can be. When the 2nd Coming fills my heart, I “will seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). I will fix my mind on “things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2) because I have died and my life “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Already my heart is in heaven. And by faith I am sitting together with Him in the “heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6).
That takes a radical shift in my focus. It’s pretty easy to get caught up in the hectic pace around here. To run from one appointment to the next. To jam more stuff into my schedule. And if I’m not careful, all my energy can be sapped by what’s happening right now and eclipse my focus of Jesus in the heavenly places. I can lose my center. And heaven’s attractions can get pretty dim if I’m not renewing my mind each day with the Blessed Hope.
But when my focus is looking up instead of down, looking forward instead of back, the blessed hope of Christ’s coming gives me strength for my journey. And I will be with Jesus in the heavenly places! Not just tomorrow (when He comes for me) but right now. Today.
How can I stay with Jesus in the heavenly places and experience the hope of His Second Coming? How can I have this upward focus when my time is so tied up to the here and now? King David knew the answer. He said, “I have set the Lord always before me” (Psalm 16:8). That means putting Jesus in the right spot, right before my eyes, no matter where I’m going or what I’m doing. It means remembering He is with me and I can talk to Him as I go through my day—as I’m driving to work or to the store. When my hands are busy, I can praise Him as if I was already on the Sea of Glass up in heaven.
Setting the Lord always before me means practicing the Lord’s presence. But it also means something more. That’s where the Hebrew comes in. The word we translate as ‘set’ originally is ‘shavah’ and it can mean “to agree with or become like” another. To set the Lord always before me means something is happening to me. I’m becoming like the One I’m focusing on. And focus isn’t just remembering to think about Jesus. It’s agreeing with what He tells me—not merely intellectually, in how I think (though it definitely starts there). But most of all, it’s showing my agreement by how I put God’s Word into practice. It’s hearing and doing. Believing and living. It’s becoming what God longs to see when He comes in the clouds of glory with all the holy angels.
“Beloved, now we are the children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2,3).
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