Luke 12: 35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
When last did you read these verses?
As Christians, we look forward to Jesus’ second coming and are ready to spend eternity with Him in a world that knows no more death, or pain, or tears. That readiness involves two elements: the first one is knowing what is happening and the second is doing what we know we ought to do in order to be ready.
I understand all of that really well. We’ve been told that baby no. 2 is due on the 26th April. I can tell you that we’ve been ready for him \ her for the past two weeks. I really mean it:
- All the baby clothes are washed and packed away,
- All the prams \ cots \ baby carriers had their covers washed and are in full working order,
- All the necessary bags (for C, for the new baby, for Josh) and medical files have been loaded in the car and carted around wherever we go for the past week.
They call it a nesting instinct – I call it readiness. I mean, I even read the book (Ready, Steady, Baby!) outlining all the labor steps (pictures and all included) and now have nightmares relating to each one of them. We brain washed J into saying ‘Dad take Mom to hopital to take the baby out’ and ‘Joshy stay home with Maia’. We paid all the bills to give us at least a two-week break from worrying, insured and repaired the cars, stock-pilled food to last us through a natural disaster, cut the two-toned weed-infested grass and called out the boiler engineer, charged the batteries for the camera and even got me off the preaching plan for two weeks. Call it nesting or paranoia, we ARE ready! Though, I reckon that by the time the baby comes, we’ll realize how short we have fallen of being ready!
The question is, how long can we keep this level of readiness without slacking? Two weeks? A month? A year? Drop the comparison, as by then, the baby will be well overcooked.
2000 years ago Jesus said that He would come back. Since then, generations of Christians have come and gone, holding on to the promises with righteous faith in spite of dire circumstances. There is, however, a unprecedented and growing movement in our world today which splits our society in two: those who consider this attitude of God-wardness to be sheer stupidity, and those who realize that the time is coming for all those promises to be fulfilled.
Christians today are not alone – they stand in a prestigious line of faithful promise-holders!
- In Noah’s time, they called him insane for spending 120 years building a water-floating device large enough to swallow a zoo! And yet, he lived!
- In Moses’ time the Egyptians laughed at the slaves getting ready to up and go, until the day arrived! And yet, the Jews were the ones to get paid off to leave and gloriously crossed Red Sea, ate the bread of angels and heard the voice of God speaking to them!
- In Jesus’ time, they called the disciples a sect and cut them up in pieces and threw them in their amphitheaters to fight lions and gladiators! And yet, they shall live to be with their Savior for eternity!
Christians today are not alone in going against the current – as long as we do not give up our hope (the only true hope there really is out there)!
May we apply ourselves just as conscientiously to being ready for Jesus’ second coming as parents do with their preparedness for the arrival of their babies.
May we never loose sight of the great promises we have that soon and very soon, we WILL see the King!
May we not stop serving, reading the Book, dreaming about it and being ready for that Great Day!
Love,
M
