A Prayer About 2nd Coming Loving
The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4:7-10
Dear Lord Jesus, how I want these words of the apostle Peter to sink and settle deep into my heart. If I really believed “the end of all things is near,” if I really believed your return could happen within my lifetime, what difference would it make on how I live and love… in the “easy” places and in the “difficult” places?
Whenever I attend a funeral of someone I’m remotely close to, I always go away with a sense of my mortality and a sense of the fragility of life. At least for a few days, I hug loved ones a little tighter and linger a little longer in conversations. But then it’s “back to normal,” and the same old harried pace takes over and the same old broken patterns in relationship resume.
Normal sinners loving as normal sinners do… rather than covering sins, we get irritated with one another’s sins… rather than welcoming one another without grumbling, we guard our own space with complaining… rather than using your gifts to serve each other, we hoard your gifts to satisfy ourselves… rather than administering your multi-faceted grace to one another, we withhold it from one another. Yet, “the end of all things is near.” God have mercy on me, the sinner.
Lord Jesus, please bring the gospel to bear in fresh and powerful ways in my way of relating to others. I don’t want to love by guilt, but by grace. I don’t want to love by fear, but by faith. I don’t want to love with a heart of manipulation, but with a heart of ministry. I don’t want to love with a view to another funeral, but with a view of your 2nd coming. I don’t want to love to get anything, but because I’ve received everything in you.
Dear Lord Jesus, you are the one who loves me deeply. You are the one who has covered, not just a multitude, but all of my sins. You are the one who always offers me hospitality without grumbling. You are the one who is always serving me and perpetually inundating me with every form of grace. Live in me… love through me… to your great glory. So very Amen, I pray, with one eye on your 2nd coming and with this cry, “Maranatha!”