What we've experienced up until now leads us to develop certain expectations about the future. The problem with this is that we might just make faulty assumptions, if they're based solely on what we've learned from our own limited experience.

Some of these faulty assumptions aren't too damaging. Others are life-threatening. But making all our assumptions about the future on what we alone have experienced in the past is foolhardy at best.

Jesus, for instance, encourages us not to assume that life will always go on the way that it does for us today. He issues a reminder that when the people of Noah's day made that assumption, they lost sight of God. And though God was extremely patient with them, hoping they would turn away from their sin and unbelief, their faulty assumption finally cost them their lives.

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 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; 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" (Matthew 24:36-39, NIV).

If we can get outside the limits of our own experience, we might just begin to understand that everything we see today will one day come to an end. Then we can be prepared for Jesus' return. Watchfulness will be the end result of that understanding.

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come" (Matthew 24:42, NIV).

There are many ways to be "watchful" for Jesus return. Here are five types of watchfulness for us to adopt as we wait:

• The "watchfulness" of knowing that Jesus has put things in order for us through his death and resurrection
• The "watchfulness" of Spirit-bred faith in our hearts
• The "watchfulness" of repentance over our sins
• The "watchfulness" of knowing the grace and forgiveness we've been given
• The "watchfulness" of joyfully, expectantly waiting for the life to come in heaven--the life that far surpasses anything we've experienced up till now

So be careful with your assumptions. And stay watchful, my friends.

Lord, help me to not make faulty (even deadly) assumptions. I do not want to drift from you. Keep me watchful for your return every day, realizing that I do not know when you will come to take me to heaven.

Our Bible reading for Friday, February 6, is Job 38:1 - 40:2, Matthew 24:32 - 25:13 and Psalm 18:37-42.

Header image based on "Huguenin Vintage Watch" by Sie, CC by-SA 2.0