Homecoming

It's spirit week at our school, leading up to Homecoming that will be held tonight before the football game.  If I haven't "bragged" already, our football team is ranked #1 in the state of Oklahoma for Class C, which is 8-man football.  So, it's an exciting season.

Homecoming is a time where school alumni comes back "home".  They come to cheer for the team. They come to support the Homecoming candidates.  They come to see friends and family.  Those of us who live hear enjoy greeting those who come.  Everyone is excited and there is a "celebration" feel in the air.

Some day there will be a huge homecoming.  When Jesus comes back, it will be like nothing else we have ever seen or heard.  That Day will come.  That day - that HOMECOMING day - God's children will reach their eternal home in Heaven.  What a great homecoming celebration that will be!!

The apostle Paul writes, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise . . ." 1 Thessalonians 4:16.  And Jesus Himself says:

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.  Matthew 24:30-31

We don't know when, but we can know it will.  No one can predict His return.  The Bible says so in Matthew 24:36. And because it says so, we must be ready for this day.  We know it's going to happen, but we don't always live like it could happen today.  Sometimes it's as if we want to wait until the last possible moment to do His Will, so that we can go on doing our own will.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. 

Hebrews 10:23-25

So, how should we live waiting for this day?  THE DAY?  HOMECOMING?

2 Peter 3:10-18 (total passage is below.  It's long, but so very worth reading!) tells us how to live as we wait for that day. It also says that God is patient.  He's waiting for some to make the choice to follow Him.  He's waiting for some to turn their lives over to Him, to accept His gift of salvation, to have their sins washed away in baptism and to become one of His children. He wants all of us to be ready for that wonderful Homecoming celebration!  Maybe He is waiting for you.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
¹¹ Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. ¹³ But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
¹⁴ So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. ¹⁵ Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. ¹⁶ He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. ¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.