“Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If the end of the world was arriving tomorrow, how would you live today? Where would you go? What would you do? What would you say? Would you resolve relationships? offer forgiveness? Have an adventure? Or would it just sit around and do nothing because none of it would matter anyway? The nearness of Christ’s return should have all of us considering how we should respond to that. Paul offers a bit of advice here that’s part of how we should stand firm in our faith. Let’s take a look.

When it comes to the end of the world, Christians often make one of two equal, but opposite errors. One group obsesses over it. They scour Revelation for any clue that it might be happening in their lifetime. Any teacher or preacher who seems to specialize in explaining things related to the end times gets their rapt attention. This is doubly true if they are skilled at showing how one current event or another “obviously” demonstrates how close we are to the end.

These folks are often very committed to their faith, but they’re also hard to be around. You just about can’t have a conversation with them that doesn’t eventually wind its way back to something about the end of the world. It becomes the lens through which they process every decision and have every interaction. It gets wearisome after a while.

Meanwhile, on the other side of this coin are the believers who accept the idea that Jesus is going to return generally, but if they’re honest, they don’t think it’s going to be in their lifetime. In fact, if you really push them, they’re not totally sure He’s coming back at all. I mean, it’s been 2,000 years, hasn’t it? If He hasn’t come back by now, was it all a big joke? A bad lie?

And if they’re being really honest, they’re not totally sure they want Him to come back at all. Especially not in their lifetime. They’ve got so much going right now, they just don’t have time for all of that. His coming back will mean the end of everything, and they aren’t totally sure they want to give all of that up right now. Maybe someday, but not today. For these folks, Jesus’ coming back isn’t totally irrelevant to their lives, but neither is it all that far from that mark.

Like I said, both of these positions are in error. Neither of them are what we should be aiming for. We ignore Christ’s coming at our peril. No, the language of “soon” the various New Testament authors use does not mean what we typically have in mind when we think about that particular temporal concept, but Peter has the ultimate answer for that. With the Lord thousand years is like a day, and a day is like a thousand years. We operate on the scale of seconds and minutes while God operates on the scale of eons.

At the same time, fixating so much on Christ’s return that we fail to do the work of the Gospel we are called to do here and now will leave us ineffectual in our efforts to actually advance the kingdom whose arrival we profess to be anticipating. This will damage relationships, leave the suffering and hurting in their pain, and see those who are lost left in their spiritual blindness rather than led toward the light. If we are doing nothing to hasten the arrival of Christ’s kingdom, why should we expect to be a part of it when it finally gets here?

The solution here is a big and bold both-and. We need to have our minds fully occupied by Heaven even as we work with care and passion now to see His kingdom come and His will be done on Earth as they are in Heaven. There are many ways to get this precious balance right, and Paul offers us a particularly interesting one here. In light of the nearness of the Lord, the imminence of His return, we are to “let your graciousness be known to everyone.”

So, we should be nice because Jesus is coming back? The short answer to that is, yes, with the acknowledgement that “being nice” is a rather wild oversimplification of the full weight of what Paul is saying here. The word translated in the CSB here as “graciousness” is also translated as “reasonableness” and “gentleness” in other translations. It also contains the sense of being suitable, equitable, and fair. Essentially, it means that we should be levelheaded, compassionate, and kind. We should be the kind of people who other people want to be around because they know that around us they will be treated well. They’ll be treated like they matter. Their concerns and needs will be carefully considered. They will receive help when they need it, encouragement when they need that, and even accountability should that become necessary.

Given all the things Paul could have told us to do in light of the nearness of Jesus’ return, why this one? Because being this kind of a person opens doors. When we are known far and wide for our graciousness, that will naturally draw other people to us. The more people who are drawn to us, the more opportunities we have to proclaim the Gospel. When these people who are hearing the Gospel from us combine that invitation with their observation of the kind of people we are (namely, the kind of people they want to be), they will be far more likely to receive that invitation and be set to be a part of God’s kingdom when Jesus arrives.

Let’s make this bigger than just an individual effort, though, because it’s not intended to be just that at all. When you take one person like this who graciousness and gentleness and reasonableness are known to everyone, and you pair her with a whole church filled with people who are like that, you have the makings of an incredibly powerful, community-transforming impact. Imagine if all of our churches were known for their graciousness and gentleness and reasonableness. Think about how much resistance to going would evaporate. Think how many more would willingly hear and receive the Gospel. Think of how many more lives would be changed, families reconciled and restored, and sinners saved there would be. If churches were all known to be like that, those same churches would change the world. They would, to borrow a phrase, make Heaven crowded.

Of all the things we could be in light of Christ’s imminent return, this seems like a pretty good one. Let’s do it.