Luke 21.34-36 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5, “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” The grace of God is not a message that teaches sinners to be careless. Quite the contrary. We are taught to be sober, vigilant and watchful.
Jesus says that our hearts must be guarded against the kind of living that is overweighed with worldly cares and worldly pleasures. The kind of living that is likened to being asleep or oblivious to the reality of His coming at any moment. It is so easy to get “caught up” in the world, isn’t it? It is so easy to seek to deaden the reality of sorrow or the day to day demands of life with carnal pleasures or artificial means of security.
God tells us that we must be fully armored to stand against anything or anyone that would cause the focus of our lives to be drawn away from living for Christ and His kingdom, to living for myself and my kingdom. It is because we have not been appointed unto wrath that we are to live lives that set our affections on things above, not on things of the earth. Jesus said, follow Me, and you never think of the words “worldly”, “covetous” or “selfish” when you think of Jesus, do you?
Jesus sought to please The Father in all that He said and did. God in His love lays these warnings out for us because He knows our propensity to waver and wander off course. We live in this world, but are not of this world. Revelation 19 teaches us that the great reward and celebration is in glory. There is no need to strive for ” the good life” as it is defined by those who do not know Jesus Christ. Be content with such things as you have. Live a life of thanksgiving towards God. Seek first His kingdom. Treasure Jesus and His love for you. He is coming for those whose garments are unspotted with the world.
