Soon but Soon

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and champion faith. The speaker emphasizes the importance of staying close to God's word and not being shaken by fear. They warn against procrastination and urge listeners to live for Jesus every day. The message emphasizes the imminent return of Jesus and encourages believers to stay focused and prepared. The speaker shares a personal story to highlight the urgency of faith and the consequences of not taking it seriously. They emphasize the power of the word and the need for discipleship. The message concludes with the assurance that Jesus is coming back soon and encourages listeners to meditate on this truth. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of his word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to his perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org 2 Thessalonians 2.1-2 Now, brothers and sisters, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be quickly shaken in your mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come. He is coming soon. He hasn't already come. He's coming soon. I will grant you that the church has been saying that a long time, but it's been true for a long time, and it gets truer every day that passes. It will be truer and truer until it happens. It won't ever be less true than it is right now, and it will be even truer tomorrow or next year or next century. It is true. He is coming soon, soon, soon, and soon. These words are faithful and true. The Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show his bondservants the things that must happen soon. Revelation 22.6 These are the last words that Jesus had to say in his word, the very last that he himself gave in that book. And he said it more than once. He is coming. It is going to be soon, and it is going to happen. Don't lose sight of that. It can be deadly. Years ago, I knew a guy. He'd been raised in the church, but he was set on having some fun. It wasn't that he didn't believe, but there was no urgency to his life. He wasn't acting on any of it. There was time for it. It was the way he led life at that time. He had three girlfriends. Why three? Well, he hadn't decided on just one yet. He was waiting to see how it would go. There was time. Another friend of mine was talking Jesus to him and asked flat out why he hadn't made a firm decision to believe and act on it. And his words were, Worst case, I can repent on my deathbed. He was dead within 24 hours of saying that. Car accident on the way to work. No chance to repent on a bed. Gone. We don't know if he got right with the Lord before he died. He could have. But we know Jesus was talking to him about it through friends, family, coworkers. Jesus was staying front and center in his life. We can only hope that he took Jesus up on the offer. The end is coming soon. We won't have time to repent and spread the good news when Jesus comes back. It will be too late. He'll be back and everyone will know he's real. Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is he who keeps the words of this prophecy of this book. Revelation 22, 7. If you believe in the word, you believe in the word. If you believe and apply it, you won't be afraid. You won't be troubled. You won't be shaken in your mind. Because the word will strengthen your faith. It will build it up if you'll let yourself dwell on the word on a daily basis, intentfully and with purpose. Fear comes from worry. Faith comes from the word. Remember the definition of faith, eager expectation. Fear is eager expectation in the devil's ability or the word's ability to do you wrong. Faith is eager expectation that the Lord told the truth and can be trusted to do what he said he would do. Period. That means saying things like, oh, I knew this would happen. Oh, I always get sick. This is this. This is going to be. I'm going to have. That's all eager expectation in the devil's ability or the word's ability to do you wrong. We don't think of it that way, but it is. Our words bring it to pass because what we fear comes upon us because we move out of faith into fear, out of God's territory, into the devil's territory, and it gives him power over us. Behold, it's already in your hands is basically what God said to Satan when they were talking about Job. Because Job had moved into fear. He wasn't relying on the Lord for the things in his life. He was fearing that the things in his life would be taken away, and it gave the devil the opportunity to do it because he has permission to deal with things in his circle. If we move into his circle, he has permission to do things. Keep the words of the word. Stay in the circle of faith where you're supposed to be. Don't do the do-nots. Do the do's. Actually, in fact, when we keep the word, the whole do-do-not thing is just semantics. It's paper principles. Because when we seek the Lord with intent, when we open the word to seek his face, asking Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to us in whatever scripture we're taking in that day, things change. We start to spiritually metabolize the word. Psalm 1914. It gives our spirit energy in specific areas, and we draw strength from that in those areas and get to walk in them. In other words, we want the do's. Philippians 4.8. We automatically start doing the do's, which means whether consciously or unconsciously, we start to avoid the do-nots. We start disliking the behaviors and thinking that do us harm. We get renewed to new thinking. 2 Corinthians 2.12. And you'll enjoy yourself while you're doing it. Get into the word, and it will excite you. It will make you eager to open it and read any part of it. It'll be fun. It'll be awesome. Trust me. You'll start to like it better than movies or books and television and games or any other kind of entertainment. It isn't that those things are wrong and bad in themselves. It's only that the word is better. You'll find yourself turning to the word instead of the remote, thinking about passages you'd like to read when your chores are done instead of a show to put on. Learn the word. Live it. Be blessed. Don't wait to start. He's coming soon. Behold, I am coming soon. My reward is with me to repay each man according to his work. Revelation 22.12. Do the work. The word gives us lots of things to do. John 15.1-2. Talking of Jesus to people one-on-one, inviting them to coffee or a meal to chat about spiritual things, spreading the good news, and most important, make disciples. This isn't a job that has an end date. It isn't a phase. If you're breathing, you should be discipling your children, your friends, your neighbors, someone at church, someone you brought to church after they got saved. Take a year or two and spend time with them. Helping them build on the word. Read it together. Talk about it. Look things up. Study it. Pray about it. Listen to the Lord together. Leave no stone unturned. It isn't work. It isn't a stage. It's a privilege. Not ready to disciple? Find someone to disciple you. Can't find anyone? Ask the Holy Spirit. He's there to tell us all things. All of them. Everything we can handle. Everything we're ready for. Each piece of information getting us closer and closer to God. We need instruction and we need training. Thanks to technology, we have more teaching available to us than any other generation in the history of humanity. Use it. These are the things we are to do every single day that we have breath in our body. Matthew 28, 18-20. And Mark 16, 15-18. To live for Jesus. Abide in the Lord. And discipline our fellow humans. Period. Never stopping. He's coming soon. He who testifies these things says, Yes, I am coming soon. Revelation 22, 20. Now the world will tell you it's stupid. The devil will tell you it's useless. That this soon thing has been going on more than 2,000 years with no end in sight. That it isn't soon. That it's a pipe dream. But that isn't what the Word says. The Word says Jesus is coming back. More than that, He's coming back in the same way He went up. Acts 1, 10-11. My absolute favorite thing about that passage is the angels. I can see it so clearly. Jesus rising up into the air. Every face tracking Him. Staring up into the sky. Watching Him get smaller and smaller. Eager in their view of their risen Lord, their Savior, the Living One. And as they stand there, craning necks, squinting eyes, two angels appear. And no one notices them. They're just standing there. The angels look at the people. They look up at the empty sky. They look at the people again and say basically, Uh, why are you staring at the sky? It's kind of a, Whatcha doing? moment. I find it so funny. I can see the people blinking, taking in the angels, realizing there are angels there. Mouths agape, but still fighting the urge to look back at the sky. The angels patting back here or there, saying, You know He's coming back, right? The same way? Not now, though. But soon. But give your necks a rest. He is coming soon. Angels said it, They cannot lie because they can only say what the Lord God Almighty gives them to say. And there is no lie in the Lord. Jesus is coming soon. He's coming from the sky. He's not lying. The angels aren't lying. The prophets aren't lying. The early church weren't lying. The prophecies and revelations aren't lying. The Word isn't lying. There are no contradictions, arguments, or uncertainty. He's coming back soon. Jesus isn't lying. He's coming back soon. Don't let the world convince you otherwise. He's coming back soon. Meditate on it for a while, and you'll start to feel it. That tingle in your spirit? Holy Spirit will proclaim it to you. You'll have that visitor's coming urge to look out the window, glance at the sky, see if you can see him yet. He's coming back. He's coming back. He's coming back. Soon. Our daily affirmation of God's love is Revelation 1, 1-8. Jesus loves you. He loves you and washed your sins into nonexistence by his blood. Shed in the garden. Shed in Jerusalem. Shed on dirt, stones, and thorns. Shed on the cross, on the tree, on the wood. Shed for you. Shed for me. He started things. He's going to end things. And he's made a special place for you in it. Because he loves you and can't imagine not having you with him. He doesn't want to. He wants you with him. In glory. He wants it so bad. He's coming back just so that you can head into the sky with him. A perfected present of fellowship to give and share with his Father in his spirit. He loves you. He loves you so much. He's coming. And he's coming soon. Just to see your smile when you see his. As we close, remember that you have worth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love. And no end to the things about you that he loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you. Just because you're you. 1 John 4 9-10 tells us, By this, God's love was revealed in us, that God has sent his only-born Son into the world, that we might live through him. And this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because he first loved us. He just loves us. Can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.