Our paragraph topic is: (Jerusalem's impending destruction) Part 4.
Look around you! Christ was telling the people of his time. Be mindful of your surroundings! Do not be caught up in the day to day happenings of your life, forgetting who you are. These are the words that he gave to them to make them aware of what they should know, what they should see, what they should expect other then what was in their day to day lives.
They must open their minds and their hearts to more than what they see and do on a daily basis so that when the end is near they will be able to perceive its coming. Each member of their community should be able to make themselves aware of what is happening and support others with their knowledge. It will not be easy because there will be disbelievers that will want to discredit them. There will be nay sayers who will want to make them out as fools. Christ gave them the words to support ehir belief, to strenghten them in their actions.
He told them: "When its branch is now tender, and the leaves break forth, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, know that it is near."
What message is this for us today? Can we learn from what was spoken some two thousand years in the past? Can we pay attention to these words today and make some meaning of them? We are about pleasure, about living for today, about having fun and enjoying life as we know it. Everything that we see tells us to be happy and to want what life has to offer. Pay attention to today or be left behind in the fast pase changing world. Here today and gone tomorrow. We have to keep up to know what is going on and we don't have time to be aware of the trees and the branches.
And yet that is precisely what is in our nature, part of our being. Our being, our spirit, our life itself requires that we stop and take note of the trees, of the birds, of the growing grass. It requires that we commune with nature and bring ourselves back to the singular person that we are, less we loose ourselves in the quiremire of the world. And that is the message of Christ. If we do not listen. If we do not pay attention, the impending destruction will overtake us.
Read the sign of the times! Read the Highlighted New Testament Bible and lift the scales from your eyes that you may see, that you may know, that you may find the truth of who you are in Christ. Read it as though you would read a good book, from cover to cover, and see for yourself. Do not study it in parts reading one passage and then skipping to another, but read it for understanding. Read it for knowledge. Read it for faith. Read it that your eyes may be opened, that your ears may hear, that your heart may be filled with the light of Christ . The Holy Spirit awaits you. Christ seeks to know you. Open the door and let him in.
