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 As a whole, there are roughly six times more prophecies regarding Christ’s return than His birth in the Bible. Depending on your search parameters, there are fifty prophecies regarding Christ’s birth in the Bible and an impressive three hundred about His return.

The reality that Jesus will be back one day and that His reward will come with Him is not ambiguous or difficult to piece together. It’s not like some modern-day positions some believers take where you have to wedge a round peg into a square hole to make the idea feasible.

Jesus said He would return many times throughout His time here on earth. There is also a myriad of prophecies regarding His return throughout the Bible, just in case someone wanted to pull the ‘in the mouth of two or three witnesses’ card.

This is not an issue that’s up for debate. This isn’t like the sprinkled or submerged debate with water baptism. The Bible unequivocally tells us that Jesus will return, as does Jesus Himself, to the point that one would have to be willfully blind and ignorant to have any lingering doubts about His intentions.

John 14:1-4, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may also be. And where I go, you know, and the way you know.”

Not only did Christ promise He would return, but He also promised He would not be idle until that time. He went to prepare a place for those who are His so that when He returns, He may receive them, and they may be with Him.

If you grew up in the eighties or early nineties, and you were from what was deemed a working-class family, your parent’s version of a summer camp was likely making the eldest watch over you during the day. All that really entailed was to make sure that when they got home, you wouldn’t be handing them your thumb or your eye in a jar.

Being Eastern European, whenever my mom had to work, and my grandmother was not around, she’d leave instructions as to what she expected to get done around the apartment before she got home as well. Granted, that wasn’t often because grandma was always present with her own set of instructions, and even if she wasn’t, there wasn’t much for us to do as far as fun was concerned.

Our apartment complex didn’t have a pool, a playground, or even a sandbox, and the one complex which did down at the end of the block had a keycard system and spiked fence that made it impossible to get in. Those were deemed the rich kids by us poor kids, and when it was really hot during summer, we’d go peer through the fence to catch a glimpse of the pool, then come back to our slice of paradise and play with the water hose until the Mexican lady whose window the hose bibb was under started yelling at us to vas de aqui. She’d say other things too, but I later found out they were naughty words.

Whatever else we did, we made sure to do what mom told us first, whether washing the dishes or making our beds, because mom was not one for playing games when it came to following through and doing what she’d outlined before she left.

We didn’t spend our time watching the clock for when she would return; we did what she told us to do before she returned.

That she might not return to check up on us one day never crossed our minds because mom always came back, sometimes tired, sometimes with callouses on her hands, but she’d always come back.

Jesus told us He would return, and we should take it to heart. The when of it doesn’t matter so much, at least not to me, because I know where He went and what He’s doing until the appointed time arrives, and we get to meet Him in the air.

Imagine all the things we could get done if our focus shifted from when He might return to being diligent in doing what He commanded us to do while He was gone. It’s a formidable list, to be sure, and not one that can be hammered out in an afternoon. There are ongoing pursuits we must endeavor throughout our existence, whether until we are taken home or until He returns.

That’s the thing I never quite understood about the whole debate regarding the timing of His return. If only to defend what is written, I’ve weighed in and presented what the Bible says, but as far as having a personal bone to pick, who’s to say I’m to see another sunrise? Who’s to say you are?
That we would go back and forth regarding the timing of Christ’s return, knowing full well that we may be long gone from this earth by the time it occurs, is a waste of both time and energy.

That He is returning has been established. That He has left specific instructions as to what we must do until His return has likewise been established. In light of these truths, the only pertinent question to which I must have an answer is, what will He find me doing when He returns?

Am I redeeming the time, or am I twiddling my thumbs? Am I furthering the Kingdom of God, or am I having pointless internet battles with strangers over tertiary issues that will prove true of their own accord?

With love in Christ, 

Michael Boldea, Jr.