“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. “It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” “Where, Lord?” they asked. He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.”

–Parallel verses:
‭‭Romans‬ ‭1‬:‭29‬-‭32‬
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Imagine eating a really yummy meal of chicken fettuccine and garlic bread for lunch at work or school. Two months later, a putrid odor emerges from your back seat. At first you think it must be a dead animal or lots of cow dung from outside, but it does not go away. Have you ever found a Tupperware container in a hidden spot in a locker or under the seat? Left to its own devices, this used container with old food in it, over time, becomes something really not even worth cleaning out. Mold takes over and what was once a wonderfully yummy meal is now a toxic concoction of death to whoever eats it. If only you had remembered the Tupperware and quickly cleaned it, all of this would have been avoided!

This is how our world is without the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. If we daily clean our minds and hearts through his purifying touch, we stay focused on the truth and serve God with humility and in power. However, when we become selfish, our Godly ways are fleeting and we become entrapped in this world’s lies and deception. The Romans passage here describes people who have allowed sin day after day to exist in the Tupperware of their lives. They are horribly evil and invent new ways to be wicked. And they promote and encourage those who do evil as well.

So I can understand how some will be oblivious to Christ’s coming, because they do not have ears to hear or hearts to understand God’s ways.

So the question is: How will I spend my time between now and the Lord’s second coming? Will I play it safe and hide away, hoping to see all the signs right? Or will I live life with an excitement and passion in knowing Christ that spreads to all I’m around and blesses others with the truth of God that flows out of me? This world is perishing; but our lives are an altar to our God, our hearts a temple of the Most High!

Lord, have your way in my heart today. May I reflect your truth and love and may my weaknesses show off your strength in and through me! Take all that contaminates my heart and clean it out. May I, each day, be a holy and set apart vessel for your use! I am excited to see what you will do with “broken me”!