Pathfinder Club

Do you have lost faith?, Have you ever felt that hope was torn from your heart?. I want to share you the following article, hoping to find him, which both need.

The Second Coming of Christ

by Ricardo Bentancur

"I want to leave everything. I feel like dying. Living through inertia, because I have no choice, it is to be dead. A long time ago that I forgot myself. " These were the words of a girl disillusioned with life. When I visited her at home, crying his drama: "Hardly a teenager, I got pregnant. My boyfriend left me because he had embarrassed to another. He stayed with the other. The year I met one who was my husband. I had two children with him. But last year died in an accident. Today, 28 years, have three children to raise, and now I'm an old lady. Is this all what I expected? ".

Is this what awaits us in this world? What a question! All we ask ourselves this question. Sometime in life we discover that our soul is in a place where lies the doubt. A place that hides the idea that not worth living. Total, why, when we finally die. Millennia ago, King David wrote in one of his psalms: "Man, are as grass: his days as the flower blossoms of the field, the wind passeth over it, and died, and his place shall know it no more" (Psalm 103:15, 16).

David mentions here the distressing reality that we are in transit through life. As he wrote a few days ago Joan Barril, a Spanish journalist: "It will be Bush. It will take its critics and commentators. Even pass us. Life is a constant stream of names that sometimes seem to decisive but they really are the scum of the day. ^"*

Remember that we are passing through this world should produce in us a humble and realistic attitude. As a wise old man into his house to an American tourist. When he asked, surprised, where were the furniture, the old man replied with the same question: "And yours?". The response was immediate: "Well, I'm a tourist, I'm passing here. The sage then said, "I am also passing.

Many evils we would avoid if only we remembered that at the end of our days everything has to be a memory! A good or bad memory, as we have been wise or foolish. Life is short, very short, but can also be very long. It all depends on what we have done in it and with it.

A hope which gives meaning to life

However, the news that we are passing through this earth can be really big news. The King David, which compares our ephemeral passage through this world with the flower of the field, then says: "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children of children "(Psalm 103:17). What blessed words! God's love endures forever!

And because of that love which tells King David, Christ has promised to return to this Earth. It is this hope which gives meaning to life.

When we ignore the promise of the coming of Jesus, we are weakened, we lose sight of the love of God. Above all, we lose a powerful reason to love and make others happy. This is why Jesus said "be ye also ready, for the Son of Man will come at unexpected hour" (Matthew 24:44). For those who believe in Jesus, what counts is the encounter with the Redeemer. Pending the return of Christ is the exact measurement, the thermometer, so to speak, the life of the believer (Matthew 25:1-13).

The return of Christ overlooking the intelligence, held the hope and inspired the conduct of the apostles. They believed that Jesus' return was "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13). That moment was for them the port of arrival, the end of Christian pilgrimage. All the prophecies and promises of Scripture would be fulfilled then (see 2 Peter 3:13). And like them, all who love Jesus are eagerly awaiting the day when you may see him face to face.

The basis for this hope

The certainty of the second coming is rooted in the reliability of the Bible. Shortly before his death, Jesus told his disciples to return to his Father to prepare a place for them. But he promised: "I will come again" (John 14:3). As was announced the first coming of Christ into the world in the Old Testament, so his second coming is predicted in all Scripture. Even before the flood, God revealed to Enoch that the second coming of Christ end up with sin, pain and death. The Patriarch prophesied: "Behold, the Lord with his holy myriads, to make trial of all and to convict all the ungodly of all their wicked works that have done wickedly, and all the harsh things that sinners wicked have spoken against him "(Jude 14, 15).

A thousand years before Christ, the Psalmist referred to the second coming of the Lord to gather his people: "Our God shall come, and not keep silence, fire shall devour before him, and tempestuous round about him. Call to the heavens above and the earth to judge his people "(Psalm 50:3, 4).

The followers of Christ rejoiced in the promise of his return. Amid all the difficulties they experienced, the safety that produced this promise never failed to renew their courage and strength. His teacher would take them to the house of his father! (John 14:1-3).

The cross

The second coming is intimately linked with the first coming of Christ. If Christ had not come the first time and had not won a decisive victory over sin (Colossians 2:15), then we have no reason to believe he will return to complete his redemptive work. But since we have evidence that "showed once and for all by the sacrifice of himself out of the way to sin," we have reason to believe that "appear a second time, apart from sin, to save those who wait "(Hebrews 9:26, 28).

The cross gives meaning to the hope of the second coming of Christ. When our Lord hung on the tree, the promise he made to the thief who was by his side consoling to all mankind (Luke 23:42, 43). For believers, the cross of Christ stands out from the bottom of the story of a very clear way. Not because the time to do something for the cross, but because the cross does something for the time and human life. Accept the prophetic truth of the second coming of Christ from the cross of Calvary, and certainly gives meaning to our lives and answers the question: Is this what awaits us?

How and when will?

Jesus will return in visible form: "Men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven shall so come as you saw Him go into heaven "(Acts 1:11). In other words, the angels declared that the same Lord who had a personal-leave, flesh and blood, not a spiritual entity (Luke 24:36-43) - return to this world. His second coming would be as literal and personal as his ascent. Therefore, the coming of Christ will not be an interior, invisible, but a real encounter with a visible person. To leave no doubt as to the reality of his return, Jesus admonished his disciples to not be fooled by news of a secret second coming and to this end likened his return to the brightness of the lightning (St. Matthew 24 : 27).

"Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh" (Matthew 25:13). The signs of his coming show that will soon (verse 24). But we do not know when. Anyway, is not the time in the history of this world that gives meaning to Jesus Christ. It is Christ who gives meaning to history and our time.

It was not until my father died that I realized this truth. Hours before his death, he saw it coming, underlined in his Bible all texts that referred to the second coming of Christ. Their time was consumed in this blessed hope. If it was your time of life that had determined his faith, his hope had been vain, because he died without seeing his Lord. But it was Jesus who gave meaning to his time, he, knowing he was mortal, was able to rest in the Lord, to anchor their faith beyond time. Thus died the safety of seeing him face to face.

Today, you have the opportunity to receive Christ in his heart that his life also have a sense that their time is not wasted.

Taken from the Times ®
December 2008

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