Until He Comes

Standing Firm in Shifting Sands: The Gospel in a Transformed Culture | Hope in Dark Times – Day 8
“while we wait for the blessed hope — the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13, NIV)

Good morning, friends! Think for a moment about what it means to wait for something you are absolutely certain is coming. Not the anxious waiting of someone who wonders whether the thing will arrive, but the settled, expectant waiting of someone who knows it will. A mother in the final days before her child is born. A farmer watching a field of wheat bend and ripple in the wind, knowing the harvest is near. That kind of waiting changes how you hold everything else. It puts every difficulty in proportion. It fills the waiting itself with a quiet, stubborn joy.

The Call to Stand
We have walked a long road together in this series. We have named the battles, traced the erosion of truth, stood at the edges of hard things in the culture around us, and returned again and again to the one foundation that cannot be moved. And now, at the end of it all, the Word of God does not send us away with our heads down. It sends us forward with a charge.

Paul closes his first letter to the Corinthians with these words: “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:13-14, NIV) Five commands in two sentences, and every one of them assumes that we are still in the middle of something. Be on your guard. Stand firm. Be courageous. Be strong. Do everything in love. This is not the language of people who have already arrived. It is the language of people who are still walking, still holding the line, still choosing faithfulness in the ordinary hours of ordinary days. Paul is not calling us to a dramatic moment of heroism. He is calling us to the long, steady, costly, and beautiful work of remaining.

There is no better picture of what that remaining looks like than the one Paul himself left us near the end of his life. Writing from prison, knowing his execution was near, he said: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:7-8, NIV) Notice that Paul does not describe a perfect life or an unbroken record. He describes a race that was run to the end. A fight that was not abandoned. A faith that was kept. And he says the crown waiting for him is waiting for everyone who has longed for Christ’s appearing. That includes us. This is the inheritance of those who endure.

The Hope That Holds Us
But what makes the enduring possible? What gives the standing firm its grounding? It is not willpower or courage alone, though both have their place. What makes all of it possible is what Paul describes in Titus. There he writes: “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope — the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” (Titus 2:11-14, NIV)

The grace of God has appeared. That is the ground of everything. Not our effort, not our resolve, not our cultural resistance, but grace. The same grace that redeemed us from wickedness is the grace that now teaches us how to live. It is grace that makes us eager. It is grace that turns standing firm from a grim obligation into a glad response to what Christ has already done for us. Jesus gave himself for us. He redeemed us. He is purifying a people for himself. We are that people. And we are waiting, not merely enduring, but waiting with genuine expectation for the appearing of the one who already loved us to the uttermost.

Jesus did not leave us without specific comfort about what that appearing will mean. Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonica, gives us a picture that is meant to steady us: “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18, NIV) Therefore encourage one another with these words. That is exactly what this passage was given for. Not for speculation, but for encouragement. We will be with the Lord forever. Every trial carried in this present age is carried toward that moment.

Jesus himself spoke of this directly: “but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13, NIV) Not saved because they stood firm, but the standing firm is the shape of a faith that is genuinely alive, genuinely trusting, genuinely his. The one in whom Christ has begun a good work will stand, not by their own grip but by his.

And so the Bible closes with a cry that the church has echoed through every generation, through every wave of opposition, through every cultural moment that seemed overwhelming: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20, NIV) Come, Lord Jesus. That is the prayer of those who belong to him. It is the cry of people who are not at home in this world because they were made for another one. It is the declaration of people who know the end of the story and are willing, therefore, to live faithfully in the middle of it. This is where Jesus Christ calls us to stand, rooted in his finished work, anchored in his certain return, carrying the weight of this present age in the strong hands of his grace.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift of hope that does not disappoint. Thank You that this journey through the hard things in our culture has never been, at its center, about the culture at all. It has been about You, about the sufficiency of Your Word, and about the finished work of Jesus Christ who gave himself to redeem me from wickedness and make me his own. I am grateful beyond words that the ground I stand on is not my faithfulness but his. I confess that I have sometimes felt the weight of these days more than the joy of Your promise, and I ask for Your forgiveness and grace.

Lord, as I close this season of reflection and begin the next stretch of ordinary days, keep me standing firm. Not in my own strength, but in Yours. Teach me to live as one who is genuinely waiting for the appearing of Jesus Christ, so that waiting shapes the way I love, the way I speak, the way I endure, and the way I hold every earthly thing more loosely. Let the cry of my heart be true: Come, Lord Jesus. Until he comes, keep me faithful. In Jesus’s name, I pray. Amen.

The road ahead will still have difficult days. The culture will continue to shift. The pressure on faithful believers will not disappear before Christ returns. But we do not face those days as people without a destination. We face them as people who know exactly where this is going and who has already guaranteed the outcome. Stand firm. Be courageous. Be strong. Do everything in love. And carry the blessed hope with you into every room you enter, every conversation you have, and every ordinary moment of this good and temporary life.

We praise You, Lord Jesus Christ, for the certain promise of Your return! Father, we praise You for grace that appeared, redeemed, and is even now purifying a people eager for Your glory. Holy Spirit, we praise You for sustaining faith through every shifting season. Come, Lord Jesus. All honor and glory belong to You forever.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

We are so grateful to walk this journey of faith alongside you each morning. If you would like to receive these daily devotions, text ADD to 1-833-779-8793. Until He comes, stand firm in the grace that holds you.