My wife Robin received a letter recently from Anne Graham Lotz (one of Billy Graham’s daughters). She shared it in The Joint Heirs Adult Sunday School Class last Sunday and with a few other ladies. Since I’m away today on a Prayer and Study Retreat; I thought you might enjoy reading it as well…

I am expecting to see Jesus! In the deep place where nobody goes…in the very deepest core of my being…in the deep inner place of knowing…in that same deep place I know that my generation is the one that immediately precedes the return of Jesus Christ to earth. Jesus is coming! I know it!

How can anyone know such a thing? My knowledge is not based on my hopeful thinking…not on my dreams and wishes and feelings…not on hearsay or doom…not on gloomy economic forecasts…not on the dramatic political, social, cultural, medical, environmental and moral cataclysmic changes taking place in our world today…not on environmental disasters of biblical proportion like Hurricane Katrina or the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. I base my deep inner conviction on what Jesus said.

The signs that Jesus gave and the headlines in the news are coming together in a dramatically sobering way. I’m alarmed because it’s five minutes to midnight on the time clock of history, and so many Christians seem to be sleeping! While I believe we are living in the most strategic and critical generation in all of history, other than perhaps the original one and also the one which witnessed the first coming of Jesus Christ to earth, God’s people in general seem to be oblivious to what time it is! We are fanatical about sports; we are consumed with eating and exercise and entertainment; we mob the shopping malls; we are preoccupied with the lifestyles of the rich and famous; we zealously pursue greater heights on the corporate ladder, fight over the style of church music, argue over political candidates, dream of bigger houses and cars and portfolios…totally unaware that we are living on the brink of…what? We are living on the brink of radical inside-out, upside-down, never-be-the-same-again change! We are teetering on the edge of a giant abyss where time stops and eternity begins, yet we seem to be living our lives as though this life is all there is or ever will be.

The burden on my heart is to wake people up…to wake you up! The burden is so heavy and the vision is so clear that at times life around me seems surreal. I see people sleep-walking when they should be on high alert…their eyes blinded, ears deafened, minds numbed, and hearts hardened to warnings, like 9/11. Warnings that are so loud they should wake the spiritually dead. Yet many sleep on in lethargy, complacency, apathy…and just plain denial.

Jesus is coming! I am going to see Him. If I’m mistaken about what time it is in human history…and I readily concede that I may be wrong…if I have lived every day of my life expecting to see Jesus in the next five minutes, and I don’t…what have I lost? Nothing! What have I gained? Everything! Because my faith will become sight in one of two ways…either at His physical return to earth, or at the moment of my own death. Whichever way it unfolds, I am expecting to see Jesus! He’s coming! Join this AnGeL in living life so that when we see Him face to face, we will have no regrets!

Anne Graham Lotz

“Marantha Lord Jesus!” People used to close their prayers with that phrase in America back in the 1970’s – “Come Lord Jesus!” We’re one day closer! Are you ready? As the great pastor and Christian author Leonard Ravenhill use to say, “Is eternity stamped on your eyeballs?!” Are we living anticipating and expecting His return?

Yours in Christ’s Love,

Pastor Mark

PS –My “favorite people” will be in church this Sunday – Hope to see you here!

PPS – Tony and our Youth did an outstanding job last Sunday. We are really blessed!