◄ What Does Acts 1:11 Mean? ►

They also said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven."

Acts 1:11(NASB)

Verse of the Day

How important it was that the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven at the end of His earthly ministry, for only then could He send the indwelling Holy Spirit as the seal of all God's promises to those who believe on Him.

How wonderful to realise that in returning to heaven He would take up His twofold ministry as our great High Priest interceding to the Father on our behalf and also our heavenly Advocate and Mediator between God and man; a heavenly Saviour Who forgives all our sins.

No wonder the disciples gazed in utter amazement when Christ ascended into heaven, and how the reassuring words of these heavenly messengers must have rejoiced their hearts: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven." What an assurance to know that Jesus Christ would come again to deliver His people Israel.

How they must have wondered when this would happen. Would He return tomorrow, next week, next month? Two thousand years have sped by, and now we are living in the time that many term 'the end times' - those last days prior to the glorious return of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus will one day descend from heaven to take His Church to be with Himself in our heavenly home in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, but these angels were not talking of the Rapture here, but of His Second Coming; that glorious day at the end of the Tribulation period when Christ shall come in the clouds of glory, and every eye shall see Him.

At His First Coming He was despised and rejected of men and became our precious sin-Sacrifice but at His Second Coming He will rule and reign in justice and peace. Let us look with excitement and anticipation for the Rapture of the Church, before the Tribulation period begins. And let us pray for the nation of Israel who, at the Second Coming at the end of the Tribulation period, will see Jesus return in the same way that He went, watch Him set His feet upon the Mount of Olives, and as a nation cry out: "Blessed is he Who comes in the name of the Lord."

Praise His holy name.

My Prayer

I praise Your name, Heavenly Father, that Jesus will return to earth to claim His rightful position as King of kings and Lord of lords at the end of the Great Tribulation. Thank you for the blessed hope I have, that I will partake in the Rapture of the Church before the Tribulation period begins when "the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will ever be with the Lord." May I live each day of my life in a way that is pleasing to You, a life that points others to the Lord Jesus as the soon coming Saviour of the world. In Jesus' name, AMEN.