Matthew Devotion: 24:46

"... blessed is the servant whom his master, when he comes, will find still doing..."

At the end of the Day - and there will be an end of the Day - we want to be caught by surprise, doing the things God has called us to do.

Many people spend so much time thinking through End Time scenarios - as if their salvation depended on it - they're missing out on the blessing of simply serving others in his Name. They perhaps think that once they get their minds around the "correct" eschatological time line, they will be blessed. But it doesn't happen that way. Jesus didn't say we'd be blessed if we knew the countdown. He said we'd be blessed if we're serving others in his Name at the time of Liftoff.

We need to rest. He knows the the order of events and that's all that matters. He has told us beforehand (v.25).  Some of the events have been fulfilled.  Roman Governor Titus, for example, has entered the Most Holy Place and had a stature of himself set up where the Ark should have been. People reading this Gospel would have known about that and been encouraged that the Son of God really knows what he's doing.

Other events have yet to come. It's tempting to be distracted and caught up in the catching up of the Saints. It happens in every age because these events touch something deep within us. They foreshadow our Sure and Certain Future and scents all we know in barely tangible ways. How can we not be tempted into getting caught up in its phenomenalistic addiction?

Yet we are not called to figure it out. We are called to know that it's coming is as certain as anything we know and then, with that in mind, be all-the-more-so about the Father's Business.

Life which hangs it hat on the latest End Time heart-beat becomes anemic, hollow, formula-driven, and a weakening witness to the ones around us that need God's Love to meet them in their fears and weaknesses. A life that carries on with joy and passion, however - in the shadow of that great and terrible Day - will be blessed to everyone.  Jesus told us these things would happen beforehand to ease it for us, to label it for us so that we wouldn't need to be distracted from serving him and - heaven forbid - loose our blessing.

A surfer, when paddling for a wave, would be foolish to stop paddling, sit up, look back, and examine the face of the wave, it's break, its height, or even turn to paddle closer for a better study. No. The surfer continues paddling towards the Shore, all the time aware its imminent coming, all the time doing his duty, doing the thing that needs to be done.

The Wave will come - regardless of his precise knowledge of where and when it will break. Be sure about that.

But, this way, he is sure to catch the Ride and rise above the jagged edges of the Reef below.