What Are You Looking For?

I was reading through the book of Revelation when I came across this verse.

Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

After reading this, I had to pause for a moment and ask myself if I could honestly say the last five words and mean them.  “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”  I mean, I want Jesus to come back, but do I want Him to come back now?  This led me to another verse.

Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

This is what believers are supposed to be doing.  We should be looking for Him, anticipating Him.  Christ’s appearing should be an exciting thought for me.  However, I fear that I do not look for Him with the fervor that I should have.  So, I asked myself, “Why is this?”  Then, I noticed that this verse did not have a period at the end of it, but a semicolon.  So, I read the next verse.

Titus 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Then, I believe I found at least part of my problem.  Jesus gave Himself on the cross to redeem me from all iniquity and purify me.  I am supposed to be different from the world around me, which is full of people who have not experienced that redemption.  Perhaps I am too caught up in what the world has to offer.  Not that I have allowed myself to participate in overt, unrepentant sin, but maybe I have given in to the worldly thinking that pervades my culture.  As a result, maybe I have lost some of my desire to be thoroughly cleansed from the sin that I carry in my flesh.  Furthermore, it has likely affected my will to be “zealous of good works”.

This then led me to a final verse in my search for what troubled me.

1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

I wonder if I have loved the world.  This does not mean the world that God created, but rather the world’s system, which is ruled by the “god of this world”–Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4).  I fear that too many times I find myself so consumed with what is going on around me that I forget what is going on above me.  As the old song says, “This world is not my home.  I’m just a passing through.”  My home is in Heaven and that’s where Jesus is.  One day He is coming back.  And that is an event I should be looking for.