“WHEN HE COMES!”

 Luke 9:23-27                               (ESV)

“23 And HE (JESUS) said to all, "IF anyone would come after ME, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and FOLLOW ME.

24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for MY sake will save it.

25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?

26 For whoever is ashamed of ME and of MY words, of him will the SON of MAN be ashamed “WHEN HE COMES” in HIS GLORY and the glory of the FATHER and of the holy angels.

27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of GOD." 

There are many lessons in these five verses that are worthy of further meditation, but this morning I am consumed with “WHEN HE COMES”!  JESUS is saying to everyone that HE IS COMING BACK!  We say that we Believe HIM, yet we live our lives worried about the things that we have absolutely no control over.  How do we reflect JESUS with our actions and live in fear and doubt?  The bottom line is, many of us have never experienced a TRANSFORMATION, a life altering experience that is the NEW BIRTH!

In verse 23 JESUS begins with “IF anyone would come after me....”!  JESUS didn’t say that we needed to repeat a “sinners prayer”, nor join the largest congregation, nor do whatever the latest, greatest fad calls for people to do.  HE said to “...let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and FOLLOW ME”.  When DENY ourselves, we are saying that we are unable to save ourselves, that we need DIVINE intervention!  It is a FATAL miscalculation to ASSUME that a person who is “not that bad” will enter Heaven.  Romans 3:23 says it like this, “for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of GOD,”.  It has been said that ALL means ALL!  I am unable to translate that any better!  ALL!!!!

Sometimes the BIBLE is hard to grasp, to FULLY understand!  But here it is without debate that JESUS commands us to DENY ourselves and to “take up his cross daily and FOLLOW ME”!  JESUS says in John 16:33 “...In the world YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION. But take heart; I have overcome the world."  JESUS didn’t say that we MIGHT experience trials, that we COULD have problems.  No, HE said YOU WILL HAVE TRIBULATION!  That is a PROMISE!!!

But just a couple of verses later JESUS says “WHEN HE COMES”, speaking of HIS coming in all of the GLORY of HIS FATHER and the holy angels!  It isn’t that we need to do HIS commandments in case HE returns, that we need to clean up our acts just in case we make it to HEAVEN.  NO, “WHEN HE COMES” is another PROMISE from our CREATOR that is MOST DEFINITELY going to occur.  Which group of souls will you be in?  The ones who are weeping and wailing with gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:50; Luke 13:28)?  Or we who have died to ourselves and taken up our cross and FOLLOWED HIM? “WHEN HE COMES” it will be TOO LATE!!!