The Return of Christ: My Responsibility As I Await His Return

What does your responsibility as an ambassador of Christ look like?  According to the Apostle Paul, your Christian responsibility is to love.  For Paul, love embodies the highest ideals of the new kingdom.  As you can see, in Romans 13:11, he gives this quality a matter of urgency.
“Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.”
 
Did you pick up on the urgency of Paul’s words?  It’s as though He’s sounding the trumpet or the conch shell.  Did you see the Tom Brady’s tweet this past week?  As you may know, Tom, recently signed with Tamp Bay.  In a hilarious social media post, he is standing in a clearing in the woods.  He lifts a large shell to his mouth and blows!  Out comes this ominous roar, the screen cuts away to hundreds of startled birds leaving their perch.  Then out of the darkness of the woods, the great Gronkowski, comes sprinting forth as a soldier to his general.  Completely out of breath, he said, Gronk, reporting for duty.
 
Just like that… you are to rise up and get busy because of the time.  The word Paul uses here is defined as a time, or season.  Paul is essentially saying,
Do this, knowing the kind of time in which you live.  Do what?  Love.  Look around, the season is closer than it’s ever been for the return of Christ.  It could happen at any moment.  Jesus says, when you see these signs, wars and rumors of wars, the earth groaning with tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, volcanic activity, and pestilences.  Are your ears perked up?  Jesus says, when you see these signs, “look up.”
 
The day of redemption is drawing near.  We are getting closer.
 
Are you ready?  Do you know Him?  Are you living for Him?  That’s Paul’s point.  Every Christian should be living in a particular manner, what is it?  A life that demonstrates His love.
 
How do we demonstrate love?
 

• Maintain a balanced view of yourself.  (12:3)
• Utilize your gifts for the good of the body.  (12:4-8)
• Outdo other believers in showing honor to one another.  (12:9-14)
• Return good for evil and leave room for the Holy Spirit to convict.  (12:17-21)
• Meet all you obligations to government and give them the proper respect.  (13:1-7)

 
These create a foundation of love on which you can build relationships and hopefully extend the new kingdom.  Paul describes our time as one in which salvation is closer to arriving than ever before.  Of course, this is not our personal salvation.  That has already happened.  Paul is referring to the return of Jesus Christ and the restoration of God’s righteousness, the master plan of salvation.  Because it is closer than before and could occur at any moment, you cannot afford to be sleeping right now.  You need to be alert, living in eager anticipation of that day.