A four-year-old bounded down the hallway to her toddler brother and announced “Hey, you are going to heaven!” This might have been an endearing moment, had she not added, in a sing-song voice, “but first you have to die…“ The parents overhearing this were first filled with joy at the tender announcement and quickly switched to shock over the blunt morbidity of the second statement. How can a young child so easily speak the sad truth that we will all die- and present it without fear, but with joy?

Yes, we will someday die. When Adam and Eve committed the first sin at the very beginning of the world, God promised that they would surely die for their disobedience. God also promised that someday, he would send Jesus to take away their sins and all the sins of their decedents.

The end of the world has been wrongly predicted by scientists, archeologists, religious leaders, and philosophers for the past several hundred years. Some predictions were made based on ancient calendars, others on signs of nature, and some predictions were even based on parts of scripture.

But we know this for sure: we do not know when Jesus will return! Earlier in the chapter, Jesus even says that only God himself knows the date of his return (Mark 13:32). It is not our job to try to figure out when he will come. In fact, it could even be dangerous, spiritually, for us to know the day or time. We might allow ourselves to become immersed in the sins of the world, knowing that we “have time to repent”. Purposely waiting our last moments of life to ask for forgiveness is very dangerous, indeed.

God tells us that our job is to “be ready”. He wants us to come to him in prayer, and he wants us to read about his promises in his Word. He talks to us every time we read the Bible, and he offers us comfort. God always keeps his promises, and we eagerly await the fulfillment of his “ultimate promise”, when he comes back to take us to the mansion in heaven that he is preparing for us. God promised that the entire world would be redeemed through the precious blood of his Son, and this promise was fulfilled on the first Easter weekend when Jesus died, beat the devil, and came back to life. We are ready for our Savior to come again!