If The Lord’s Coming, Why Aren’t We Preparing?

Something has been weighing heavy on my mind for some time now. It seems that no one is preaching ‘preparation’. As you know, I believe there will be a rapture of the Church. As things are winding down and we see prophecy coming to fruition it is time for true women and men of God, I believe, to focus on being prepared for His coming.

Q. Something has been weighing heavy on my mind for some time now. It seems that no one is preaching ‘preparation’. As you know, I believe there will be a rapture of the Church. As things are winding down and we see prophecy coming to fruition it is time for true women and men of God, I believe, to focus on being prepared for His coming. What are your thoughts on this and can you suggest any readings for me on this?

A. You make a good point. And of course the reason no one is preaching preparation is that no one wants to hear it. Same goes with books on the subject. They don’t sell. Even among the most sincere believers, the Lord’s return is still more theoretical than real, and to think of Him coming in our lifetimes takes a huge paradigm shift that few are willing to make.

My view is that to prepare for His coming we should focus on two things. First is to exercise our faith to make it stronger. As I’ve said before, we do this by walking by faith even if we aren’t currently experiencing difficulty. Learn to rely on the Lord again as at the beginning of our walk with Him, not making any decisions without seeking His will. Pray without ceasing, pray about everything. Study His word daily. Get and/or stay current on our tithing. Put Him back in charge of our lives. Cultivate like minded friends. Start acting like we really expect Him to appear soon.

And second is to begin simplifying our lives, getting rid of all the things that distract us from nurturing our relationship with Him. The old saying is true. We work to get things, and then we work because we have them. These things divert both our time and our resources from “Kingdom activity” that would bless us and please Him. Let’s start extracting ourselves from the grip this world has on us and focus more on the next one. After all this one only has a few more years to run, the next one lasts forever.

Doing these things would make our lives into an example for others that would probably bring more people to the Lord than all our fancy evangelism programs could ever accomplish. Folks always respond better when they see that we actually believe what we’re telling them.