“…Jesus commands us to be sober-minded and ready for His return—paying careful mind to our walk, that we may walk as Christ; that we may be good and faithful servants, diligently going about the Father’s business. That is how we are to long for Christ’s return. If we truly long for His return, then we will make the most of the short time that we have on earth to do God’s will, as He has revealed to us in Scripture. To truly long for the return of Christ is to be diligently, and with great sobriety, carrying out the desires of God both within our hearts and in the world. To pursue “sobriety” means that we are diligently seeking to distinguish truth from error (according to God’s Word), being carefully and always on guard against evil, both from within our hearts and in the world. It is as the wakefulness of a dutiful guard on the night watch, longing for the sun to rise…”

“It is not as simple as to think that we are on a free ride, and that we never come to actually do what Christ did in His humanity. Rather, all who come after Christ die to themselves, take up their cross, and follow Christ. They lose their lives that they may follow in Christ’s footsteps. This cannot be reduced to a trite or shallow phrase. Rather, it means all that it says, and in the very strength in which it is given. We die to ourselves, and live our present lives for Christ—even unto our deaths. All that we have in this world is to be counted as loss—as trash—so that we may attain to the true knowledge of Christ—living and dying as He has, that we may be resurrected as He has…”

“In Jesus’ first coming, Jesus’ goal was to inaugurate the New Covenant, which was a fulfillment and perfection of the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant—also knows as the covenant of works—believers did not have the divine resources of a new heart and the Holy Spirit. They also only had shadows of the true things of Christ. All of their biblical rites, ceremonies, and feasts pointed to Christ, and have their culmination and completion in Him…”

“‘Advent’ refers to the coming of Christ. There are two advents: Jesus coming to earth as a child, and Jesus’ return to judge the living and the dead. Originally, the Jews were very much anticipating the first coming of the Messiah, who would usher them into a new age. Most (if not all) of them thought that the events of the first and the second coming were going to happen at once, which would include an overthrow of their Roman oppressors. Many Jews did not anticipate that the Messiah would die on their behalf, or that He would die for the sins of the world…”