Why Do Today What You Can Put Off Till Tomorrow?

 

“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.  Matthew 24:30-31

 What are you putting off? What seems like you’ve got time and you can take care of that later? Sometimes it’s very true, in fact the longer we wait the less we think we actually need to do that thing. Sometimes putting things off puts them into perspective, but sometimes procrastination burns us. I remember one Christmas one of my then adult children put off buying their Christmas gifts too long and then when we came together to celebrate, they were empty handed. No one held it against them, at least I don’t think they did, but I know that child didn’t enjoy Christmas very much that year.

 A sentiment I heard often from people when I was in my 20s was that they wanted to live life on their terms, doing whatever they felt like, and then when they got older, they’d get right with God. The glaring error in this thinking is what if you don’t make it till you get older and time runs out before you expect it to, but the other serious concern is that the longer you live life your way, the less likely you are to be open to doing it God’s way. The bigger the gap, the harder it is to imagine crossing it. The other loss not taken into account by this thinking is the unimaginable blessing it is living with Jesus in your life. The longer you put that off, the more you miss out.

 Our verses for today tell us that when we see the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, all the peoples of the earth will mourn. Now, this could very much have to do with the crazy signs leading up to it – wars and famines and earthquakes not to mention “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken” (Matthew 24:29), but I suspect there will be more to it than that. Verse 30 says that all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. You would think that Christians would be rejoicing, we would be ecstatic in our praise and excitement, but this verse says all the peoples of the earth will mourn. This might mean that some of each people group will mourn because they do not know Jesus as their Savior, but others will rejoice in His appearing. It might also mean that everyone will mourn. I can only guess that this would be because of those things we have put off, that person we never got around to sharing the hope of salvation with, the time we mean to spend in prayer but didn’t, the Bible study we should have done in preparation for this moment.

Here's the Thing: I’m not a theologian. I do not claim to have a special understanding of this passage. I can only read it as a faithful follower of Christ and try to process what these mysteries could mean. My takeaway? Don’t put it off. Whatever it is, if it’s on your heart today, do it today!