Why God Keeps Coming Back Anyway

Nothing transforms a human being faster than the announcement of unexpected company, unless you are someone whose house is always ready for visitors.

Whether it’s last minute or something you’ve been expecting for a while, you live differently when someone is coming. And it’s not just company, because Jesus is coming back too, whether we are ready or not.

We love predicting, not preparing. We love solving mysteries. We love predicting the end times, unlocking timelines, or cracking prophetic codes. Why is this? Because when the world feels chaotic, uncertain, and loud, prediction feels like clarity.

Wars. Elections. Economies. Cultural Shifts. Moral confusion. Everything feels like it’s moving faster than we can process. And when life feels like that, we don’t want just hope, we want explanations.

• This is why this is happening.
• This fits here on the timeline.
• This means that prophecy is being fulfilled.

It’s then that the chaos feels manageable, but not because it’s gone, but because it’s organized. The problem is that you can correctly interpret the moment and still miss the calling.

Prediction takes us out of the moment, preparation plants us in it.

Prediction lets us stand outside the moment and analyze it, requires us to live inside the moment faithfully, and makes us commentators or even disciples.

Jesus doesn’t just want us informed about the times – He wants us formed by trust in the middle of them.

If we’re going to follow the Way of Jesus and the Word of God, we have to remember that Jesus never tells us to figure out His return, but He does call us to faithful living in the time we live in.

When prediction replaces preparation, we don’t become ready people, we become extremely people.

Living faithfully in the present is hard. We tend to drift one of two ways.

1. We ignore His return.
2. We obsess over His return.

Both extremes keep us from faithful, present obedience, avoiding the fact that if Jesus is really coming back and that how we live right now matters.

So, what does Scripture actually say about Jesus’ return?

God is a God of promises
John 14
27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.
28 You heard Me say, ‘I am going away, and I am coming back to you.’

We serve a God who always keeps His promises. It’s the same God and the same Jesus that made us the promise of His return.

• Jesus will literally return.
• He will personally return.
• His return is imminent – could occur at any time.

And we acknowledge that there are multiple views on how and when He will return. But there is unity about the fact that He is coming back.

So, what does Jesus say?

Matthew 24
36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Jesus doesn’t know when He’s coming back. So, if Jesus didn’t give a date… why do we need one? If the Son didn’t have the date, maybe the Father wasn’t asking us to figure it out. Maybe he was asking us to trust Him without it.

Dates create deadlines, but trust creates dependence.

Deadlines aren’t bad, they’re useful, but they create the illusion that something can be postponed. They tell us that things can be deferred. And deadlines can do the same thing spiritually. Deadlines quietly teach us that obedience, faithfulness, staying awake – it’s all something we can deal with later instead of something we do right now.

That’s not the kind of thing Jesus is after.

Matthew 24
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

“The days of Noah.” Jesus isn’t commenting on the sinfulness of the time or emphasizing how sinful people were, but how ordinary life felt right up until something imminent happened. The passage here isn’t to display wicked excess, it’s showing unconcerned normalcy. People were so absorbed in daily life that they ignored God’s warning through Noah.

Jesus tells us to be alert, and not because we don’t have the information, but because we ignore it. We need to be alert!

Matthew 24
42 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

The word alert doesn’t mean anxious, paranoid, scanning headlines, or decoding dates.

Alertness looks like daily faithfulness, not dramatic moments.

This is so that when Jesus returns, whenever that is and in whatever time, He finds His people doing what He’s asked us to do, not because we know when He’s coming but because we know WHO is coming. And when He does, He won’t find His people staring at the sky, He’ll find us living like He’s already King.

How would you live in 2026 if you truly expected Jesus to return?

Pastor Joey explains that being alert isn’t proven in what we say or believe, it’s revealed in this.