Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Monday, May 18, 2015

So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man [Jesus Christ] will come at an hour when you do not expect him."¹

In their book, The Truth Behind Left Behind, Mark Hitchcock and Thomas Ice wrote about the morning of May 18, 1980, when Mount Saint Helens in S.W. Washington, "exploded with the force of thirty thousand atomic bombs, sending super-sonic concussive waves that flattened everything within 150 square miles. On the heels of that wave, a fifty-foot wall of mud and ash screamed down the mountain and into the surrounding forest land, burying everything in its path and changing the landscape forever."²

Harry Truman, the eighty-three-year-old caretaker of a lodge on Spirit Lake at the foot of Mount Saint Helens, knew all about the multiple seismographic evidence that warned of a pending massive explosion. Harry claimed that he knew more about this mountain than anybody else. He ignored the endless earthquakes in the preceding two months, the hundreds of steam blast explosions, and the massive eighty-meter bulge on the mountain side.

He claimed it wouldn't dare blow up on him. But it did. Harry, along with all others who ignored the warning signs, was buried under 600 feet of volcanic ash and material.

When Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was here on earth He repeatedly warned His hearers that unless they put their life right with God, they would be lost without hope forever in the place Jesus called hell. Furthermore, over and over again He promised that He would return to earth to take His true followers to be with Him forever in heaven and all who were not ready would be left behind.

As Jesus first coming to earth was predicted in God's Word, the Bible, hundreds of years before He came and fulfilled in minute detail, we can be just as certain that His second coming will happen just as predicted in God’s Word and as Jesus Himself promised.

Make absolutely sure that you are not like Harry Truman who disregarded all of nature's warnings about the pending doom, and ignore God's repeated warnings. Jesus warned us to be ready because He will come when we least expect it.

If Jesus were to come today, would you be ready? If not, I urge you to make your life right with God today. For help be sure to read, "How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian" at: http://tinyurl.com/8glq9

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank You that you have warned me time and again to be ready for when Jesus returns to earth to take His true followers to be with Him forever in heaven. I believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for all my sins and I ask for Your forgiveness for all my sins. Please help me to be sure that I am ready for when Jesus returns. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Jesus (Matthew 24:44, NIV).
2. Mark Hitchcock and Thomas Ice, The Truth Behind Left Behind, p. 157-158. Multnomah Publishers, Sisters, Oregon.

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