LUKE 12:35-40 – Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
THEME OF THE DAY: READY OR NOT, HERE I COME. Remember the game hide and seek? Maybe some of you still play with kids and grandkids. You know how it went. Someone is designated the “finder” and begins to count as everybody else hides – “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, ready or not here I come” and the game unfolds regardless if the hiders were ready or not.
In today’s scripture, Jesus admonishes us to be on guard at His coming. It will not be pre-announced. It will be sudden and demands a diligence in looking for that day. The language Luke uses stresses such watchfulness – “Stay dressed for action, and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast” and “You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Jesus isn’t the only Person in the New Testament to exhort us to be ready for His coming. The Apostles Paul, Peter, and John did as well.
From the Apostle Paul to the Colossians – “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. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-4). Here the emphasis is we are already seated in the heavenlies with Christ so keep our affections and thinking there with the anticipation of Christ, who is the believer’s life, returning for His own.
From the Apostle Peter to the exiles in Asia Minor – “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13). We find Peter emphasizing to think right, be serious, for the day of grace at the appearing of Jesus is at hand. Good advice. Life is serious and short. Be ready. He is coming.
Finally, we have the words of the Apostle John in his first letter – “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:1-3). John would encourage us to look for Jesus’ appearance because it completes our sanctification and ushers in our glorification – we will be like Jesus; surely our longing in this life to be complete and free from sin!
So, ready or not, He is coming. Let’s be ready and be able to quote the next to last verse in our Bibles with sincerity – He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20).
PRAYER: “Lord, help me to live each day as if I will meet You during the day.”
QUOTE: “Live each day with Christ’s priorities guiding us and do it as if it were our last day. Someday it will be.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim