Are We Ready?
We spend a lot of time getting ready. At work, we gather details and perform small tasks to complete a larger project. At home, we often ask each other ‘do we have everything we need?’ If we’re going to accomplish what we desire, we want to be ready.
In His last few days on earth, Jesus talked about being ready. In Matthew 24.44, “Therefore, you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” And then Jesus told a parable that’s hard for us to understand. Ten young women were invited to a wedding feast. But the bridegroom was delayed, and no one knew when he might come. As they waited for the party to begin, five wise virgins were ready (they had filled their lamps with oil), but five were foolish. Matthew 25.10 “… the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut.”
Paul warned Timothy about being ready. 2 Timothy 2.15-21 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble… therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” Paul used even stronger language in 2 Timothy 4.1-2, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”
There are a lot of good ideas in God’s word about how we can be ready when Christ returns to earth, but here are two of them. LOOK UP “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” (Col 3.1-2). LOOK LONG “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4.13-14)