This week, even though Christmas has passed, I would like to take a new look at a familiar story. Many of you may have read Luke chapter 2 a few weeks ago, but if you are like my family, the tradition of reading the Christmas story stops at verse 20. This year, I read a little bit further and discovered a very cool part of this story that many people probably are not that familiar with. Verses 21-40 tell of Christ's first trip to the church and his encounter with Simion. Simion was told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before seeing the Lord's Christ.

Imagine for a moment that you have been told that you would see the coming messiah before you died. It would give every day a certain element of uncertainty, wouldn't it? Imagine how you would approach each morning when you woke up, how you would look at every new person that you met, and the relationship that you would have had with the Lord. I can almost guarantee that he awoke every morning and wondered if today was going to be the day, and I also would have to bet that this question altered how he approached his day to day existence.

The commonality that we share with Simion is that we to have been told about the coming of Christ. The second coming of Christ, we are told, could happen at any moment and that it will happen when people least expect it. In Matthew chapter 24:36-51, Jesus tells us that two will be walking in a field and one will be taken while the other is left. He tells how it will be as in the days of Noah, people will be eating, drinking, and making merry, not knowing that the flood was the going to be the next day. So although we have not been given the promise that Christ's second coming will happen before we are to die, we have been given the fact that it could happen at any moment. Does knowing this change how we see our days when we wake up in the morning? It should.

Knowing that Christ could return tonight while I am writing this is a very awesome thought and it makes me ask myself, as it should you, am I ready and looking for him? Don't get me wrong, for us as Christians, when it happens we will know it. The Bible says that there will be trumpets and a bright light - the whole world will know that the Lord has come. But does the fact that we know his return could happen today change how we live?

I know that this has been a repeated question, but reading this story made me think that all too often I get sucked into the rut of my life and get busy with the mundane list of errands and tasks that need to be completed that day or week and fail to see that God might be coming. Being aware of Gods presence in our lives will cause many things to happen. This awareness causes us to look for ways that God might want to use us in reaching those that we know with the good news of the gospel, we will be attuned to the blessings that God can, wants to, and will give us throughout the day.

FINAL THOUGHT: As Christians we need to have an excitement in knowing that Christ could show up at any moment and the zeal to make sure that people will not miss him when he does.