Is That Your Final Answer?

keep the commandment without strain or reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time  1 Timothy 6:15

Bring About – Let this sink in:  because Jesus will return and the final answer of life is in His return, you are freed from the necessity of making sense of life here and now. 

Did you get that?  Better read it again.  Jesus will return.  His return is the summation and fulfillment of God’s purpose for this world.  His return brings with it the final answer to this life.  Therefore, you are released from the task and the obligation of making sense of it all now.  You don’t have to know.  Jesus is coming back with the answer.

This is the most important message about the significance of life that you can ever learn.  Jesus has the answer.  Not me.  Not you.  And because Jesus will return with the answer, I do not have to spend my life worrying about my significance.  It is not my answer that matters.  It’s His.

Paul tells Timothy (and you and me) that Jesus will “bring about” this concluding remark on Life at the proper time.  The Greek verb is deiknuo.  It means more than “cause to happen.”  It has the sense of revealing, of making something present to sight.  It’s as though Paul says, “Jesus will point out the answer to everyone when He arrives.”  The final answer to Life will be on display.  We won’t miss it.

We are not in the here and now but rather in the here and then.  We live here, but we are to be focused on “then.”  Life is much more mysterious than we can imagine.  Only Jesus knows the real truth behind the scenes.  So, I don’t have to come up with my best life now.  I don’t have to find my purpose in order to be fulfilled.  I don’t have to fret over the legacy I leave behind.  The real answer is still coming.

Wait!  Does that mean I have nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs until He arrives?  Hardly!  There is plenty to do.  Paul tells me, “Keep the commandment without strain or reproach.”  That is a lifetime of work in itself.  But I do not have to worry about the goal.  As long as I am paying attention to the step-by-step pathway, I am completely free from striving for the goal.  My life is wrapped up in the next moment with Jesus, because He is taking care of the final moments.

I am free from the burden of what I will become.  What a relief!  I can go back to washing the dishes.  Jesus is coming.