“I’ve never really thought about the Second Coming of Jesus all that much. Just wasn’t something I ever really spent much time thinking about…”

I hear this from Christians all the time.

Can I be honest. That’s like a 6 year old kid telling me “I never really think about Christmas all that much. Just isn’t something I ever really spent much time thinking about…”

Over the years I’ve found no other litmus test that seems to be a better indicator for a person’s spiritual health than to ask this question, “How do you feel about Jesus’ return?”

People’s response to that question says a lot. It says everything.

Most people avoid the topic like the plague. If they’re Christians they know the Sunday school answer is “Maranatha Lord Jesus!” but as soon as those words come out of their mouth they’re on to the next thing… the thing less disconcerting to their soul.

Why?

If Scripture tells us the coming of Jesus is our “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13-14) and that we should “encourage one another with these words” (about his coming, 1 Thessalonians 4:18) then why do people avoid the subject so desperately? Especially in the church?

Because they’re afraid.

And they’re afraid because they haven’t been “perfected in love…”

The coming of Christ isn’t “Christmas Day” to them, it’s a dreadful fear of punishment.

Why?

Because again, they have not been perfected in love.

How then is a person perfected in love?

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” – 1 John 3:16

“13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19We love because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:13-19

When a man finally believes the good news of Jesus, not as a Bible verse to be memorized and recited but as a good tidings of great joy that is an actually message from a Living God to the heart of every man, the fear of punishment for sins goes away and the love of God consumes us.

We finally see that while we were yet sinners God demonstrated his love for us in this, that Christ died for “ME!” Jesus bore MY punishment, the full tally owed to ME, and now I can rest in his finished work.

And the man who’s done this, goes from Jesus as fire insurance, to Jesus as the Way. He understands that “we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” entails that he too, must sacrifice unto God. That his life must be laid down for the love of his brother.

The sinner’s prayer and the fire insurance policy goes away and it is replaced by a friendship that compels this man to walk in the love that God showed him on the cross.

Now his Second Coming goes from a dread to a delight. We eagerly await the Day of his appearing. We earnestly search the Scriptures about it. We talk about it, discuss it, let it be a hope to us. We fill our lamps with oil and we talk about the coming Day with the joy of child who can’t help but wonder, “is it Christmas yet?!?!”

But we can’t do that until we really and truly believe the good news and then that good news transforms us from “intellectual professors of faith” unto “experiential believers in Jesus”.

Until then, we’re going to remain bound by a spirit of fear that keeps us from truly knowing and abiding in the liberating love of Jesus Christ. The Day of the Lord will remain a fearful expectation of judgment and it will never be “Christmas” to us as it should be.

So I put the question to you reading this. How do you feel about the coming of Jesus? Does it incite fear and dread in your heart. Or does your heart by the Spirit of God truly cry, “Yes Lord, come!!”