At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory (Luke 21:27)

A History Lesson
There are three great events of world history. Two have happened and one is yet to come. The creation was when God made the world. The incarnation was God redeeming the world. The second coming will be God returning to the world. The period between the creation and the incarnation is Act 1 and the period between the incarnation and the Second Coming as Act 2. We are living in Act 2. The most significant events in the history of the world have either already happened or else are still to come. There is nothing we can do to add or subtract from this – we believe in faith and we wait in faith. The mistake we make is to live as if we are in Act 1 and assume that we have to do God’s work of redemption ourselves.

There are a number of different ways that we live as if we were in Act 1 rather than in Act 2.

• We worry – we feel that we need to be in control of our lives. We live within a social code of competence and capability and feel that we need to cope, manage, and get things done. This leaves us feeling hopeless.
• We feel guilty – we can’t live up to what we feel is expected of us. This leaves us feeling judged
• We feel depressed – we feel that there is no point to what we are doing because we don’t know what we might achieve. This leaves us feeling that everything is pointless.

All of these negative feelings come when we do not trust the security of the God’s work of redemption. If we think that it is up to us to sort everything out then we are scripting God out of the picture and leaving too much pressure on ourselves