A Calling to Prepare

Just days before He would die on the cross, Jesus spoke these words to His followers:

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come."
Matthew 24:42 NIV

He knew exactly when He would die. He knew the hour of His resurrection. He knew the plan, the timing, and the weight of everything unfolding around Him.

But here, during a series of parables, Jesus shifts His focus to what’s still ahead: His return. And He makes one thing clear—we won’t know when it’s coming. No date on the calendar. No countdown clock. Just this charge: Keep watch.

Why? Because when we live with spiritual alertness and urgency, we prioritize what matters. We live awake to the work of God around us. We live watchful over our own hearts, refusing to drift into complacency.

If every day could be the day Jesus returns, then we must live every day with the same obedience to His calling for us.

Jesus isn’t calling us to panic; He’s calling us to prepare. He’s ...

“And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto ...