Credo
16 Mar 2026

Are you Ready to meet the Lord Jesus?

Time and again, the New Testament calls on us to be ready for Jesus’ return (e.g., Mt 24:36–44, Lk 21:25–28, Jn 14:1-3, Heb 9:27-28, 1 Thess 5:1-3). Sadly, most Christians today have fallen asleep at the wheel, as it were, and the mission of Jesus is left to the motivated few. Are we the “wicked and slothful servant(s)” who fail to invest the many talents our Lord has bestowed upon us (Matt 25:14-30)? How can we be ready for the Lord Jesus’ return? By reinvigorating our hearts, renewing our minds, and readying our hands.

Reinvigorating your heart

Firstly, we need reinvigorated hearts. Do you long for Jesus’ return? Or is life too comfortable for you? Are you experiencing ‘heaven on earth’? I write from peaceful and prosperous Singapore, where for most, every need (food, housing, safety) is a ‘given’ and most wants are accessible to many. Dining in a restaurant? No problem. Fancy a trip around the world to see the Northern lights? I’m heading there this December. Given our affluence and affliction-free existence, many of us are lulled into thinking that this is as good as it gets. Why do I need a “new heavens and new earth”, when life on earth is so comfortable?

But perhaps it’s the opposite for you. That ‘life’ has thrown you one too many curved balls. Your health is failing, your relationships are fracturing, and your job and career appear to be faltering. And in these moments, you may be tempted to say to God: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” (Ps 22:1)

But whether you find yourself in comfort or affliction, the solution to our pain and pleasure is hearts that are passionately infatuated with the Lord Jesus, for the Lord does not want empty service but heartfelt affection (Matt 15:8).

As C.S. Lewis put it

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses: No. 15)

To be ready for Jesus’ coming, we need to be men and women who cry out with the Psalmist:

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42: 1-2)

Is this you? Do you long for God with an insatiable thirst that only God can meet (John 4)? Or are you a lukewarm Christian, that at any moment our Lord might spit out from his mouth (Rev 3:16)? To be ready for Jesus, we need reinvigorated hearts.

The solution to this of course, doesn’t lie in you and me, but in God who gives us new hearts in the power of His Spirit (Ezk 36:26). And so our task is to pray, to pray to the Father, Son and Spirit to recapture our hearts, our minds, our souls and our very lives for Him.

Renew your mind

Secondly, to be ready for Jesus, you need to renew your mind. As the apostle Paul writes:

Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Col 3:1-4)

As Christians, our ‘investment horizon’ is not 5, 10, or even 50 years, but eternity. Eternity with the Lord Jesus is our ultimate destiny. The Lord Jesus is the ultimate reality, when all things in heaven and on earth are united under Christ (Eph 1:10).

If this is where our universe is headed, then how does this shape how we think about (1) work and retirement? (2) dating and marriage? (3) money and time? The earth-shattering and universe-altering reality of Jesus’ coming means that all of our human endeavours must be reframed from an eternal perspective.

The converse would be not simply illogical but irreconcilable with the reality of Jesus, on whom the Father bestowed “the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:9-11)

How might this reality force you to rethink your career? Your relationships? Your finances? Spend some time re-examining how you think about these areas of your life.

Ready your hands

Thirdly, to be ready for Jesus’ return, we need to ready our hands. For the risen Christ is the one to whom has been bestowed all authority in heaven and on earth. It is He who commands us to go and “make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:19b–20a). This is the task the risen Lord has given to you and to me, to be discipling the nations. How? By word and sacrament, by teaching and baptising, by proclaiming to all and sundry that Jesus is Lord! Repent! The Kingdom of God is at Hand (Mark 1:15)

If heaven is peace and purity before our King, and hell is a place of eternal torment and suffering, then we need to be ready to share the Good News of Jesus with our family, our friends and our world.

John Piper once said there are only three possible responses to the great commission: “zealous goers, zealous senders, and disobedient” (John Piper, Driving Convictions Behind Foreign Missions).

Which will you be?

Will you consider going to all people so that the World may know Jesus?

Will you support or pray for a missionary seeking to bring the good news to the ends of the earth?

Jesus is coming! Will you reinvigorate your heart, renew your mind and ready your hands? Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor 15:58)

Jonathan is a servant of the Lord Jesus at Adam Road Presbyterian Church in Singapore, where he loves sharing and teaching about the Lord Jesus. Jonathan is happily married to Priscilla, and they are blessed with two lovely children, Micah and Mariam.