Be Ready
In Matthew 24:44, we have Jesus telling His disciples, and us as well, “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” As Biblical Christians, we believe that Jesus is going to come again. The question to us today is not, “Do we believe that He is coming?” The question is, “Are we ready for His coming?”
There are two phases to the coming of the Lord. We believe that He will come first to rapture His Church, where they will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. The second phase is when He literally comes back and steps foot on the earth again and will defeat the enemy and reign here on this earth.
In light of this, we see where we actually need to be ready. We must be ready for the first phase of His coming. When He comes to rapture the church we must know that we are ready and that we are part of His Church. To be part of His Church we must know that our sins have been forgiven, that He has purified our hearts by faith, and that the Holy Spirit is living and working in our heart and life. But it doesn’t stop there.
To be ready for His return, we need to stay spiritually prepared. We need to be alert and awake, spiritually speaking. We must remain focused on keeping our walk with Jesus up to date and alive and flourishing. In order for this to happen, we must keep our prayer life real and genuine. It’s more than saying words. It’s truly focusing on Jesus and communing with Him just like we would with anyone else. But it can be more real than any relationship we may have with someone else.
We must keep in the Word of God, for it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. By it and through it we can know how we are to live and talk and relate and act. We must meditate in it daily, making it a part of our everyday life.
We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that we are going to stand before God one of these days. In other words, what we say we are, we must be. We must live focused on the help of the Holy Spirit who will lead us to be an example of Jesus; a true example of what it really means to be a Christian. And He communicates this through prayer and meditation of God’s Word.
We will revisit this, but may God help us to not just be getting ready, but to be ready!