Excerpted from Life on the Highest Plane – Ruth Paxson (1928):
1 Thessalonians 1:10,“And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”
1 Corinthians 1:7“So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Wait.”Let us not miss the sweetness of this precious truth by failing to apprehend the inwardness of its meaning. We have told some of the blessings that will come to the Christian through our Lord’s return, his resurrection from the dead or his translation without dying; his removal from the very presence of sin; his release from all bondage to self and to Satan; his reign with the Lord as co-heir of the Kingdom. Yes, all these and other blessings await us upon the coming of the Lord.
Yet the chiefest of all blessings will be missed if we stop here. What we wait for is not a blessing but a Person. We wait for God’s Son, our Savior; it is the Bridegroom, our Beloved, for whom we wait. He has promised to come for His own to receive them unto Himself. When He comes, we shall meet Him in the air; we shall see Him face-to-face; we shall be like Him; and we shall forever be with the Lord.
… Our Lord has gone away to prepare a place that we may be with Him forever. During His absence our hearts are comforted and cheered through His Word and we find precious companionship with Him in its study. But He promised to come back and, as we draw nearer and nearer to “the day of Christ” with hearts fixed intently upon this blessed hope, we wait for the Son Himself from heaven.
Words of Grace for Strength
“For a thousand years in Your sightare like yesterday when it is past,and like a watch in the night”(Psalm 90:4).
One extremely important fact to remember when waiting upon the Lord, whether it is for ananswer to a prayer, or for His soon return, is that the author of time views time differently from you and me. For He is outside of time, for He created time, and He controls time. Time may wait for no man, but time is answerable to ourLord, as is all of creation.
Paxson speaks of the blessing in waiting for a Person, and it is true that we await the return of our Lord and Savior more than we await the occurrence of an event. The sweetness of the wait is that in the fullness of His timing,
His plans are perfect. Weare waiting on His timing for His planned return; first for His Church, and a some short years later, to return to rule and reign over all the world. In doing so we get to experience that perfect moment, the one chosen by the Lord Almighty to enact that moment we so desire, that we are so anxious for.
Oh, how sweet that chiefest of blessings will be. We are so fortunate that absolutely nothing can rush that moment preordained in His plans and purposes; that moment which will be measured out in the fullness of His will and in the fullness of His time.
No matter how bad things are getting in this present time, we wait, secure in His sovereignty. No matter what is said or done, threatened orcarried out, we wait, secure in His sovereignty. No matter what burdens are placed on us, or possessions taken away, we wait, secure in His sovereignty.
And always remember that while we wait, our Lord is not idle. A place is being prepared for each of us by Him as we wait. A place perfect to spend eternity in His presence. Who would want to rush the Rapture, knowing we need wait until all is prepared for us as He has planned?
Remember also, neither should we be idle, for our Lord has called us to serve Him while we wait. His desire is for us to be evangelists and teachers and ministers and disciples who are making other disciples; living out our faith as examples of His grace in these last days.
His desire is, that while we wait for His return for us, we should call the world to repentance in His Name, sharing the very fact of His grace and mercy available to all who will trust in His salvation; and of His coming judgment, which will follow His physical return to rule and reign.
We wait, for the Son to return from heaven. We wait, for our time in His time.
We wait; and blessed are we who wait for Him.
Dr. Tuck Whitaker and Andy Coticchio
Rafter Cross Ministries