Are You Ready?
This month I began coaching basketball again. These are first and second graders so we are still very much in the basics of the game. One of the important principles we taught this past week was the proper defensive stance. On defense, a player must be ready to move and react as the offense develops. Standing there slouched over or with your hands in your pockets is a sure way to get burned! We taught the kids that they have to be ready to move.
Jesus has something similar to say to His followers in Luke 12:35-36. In this case, Jesus isn’t telling us to be ready on defense, He’s telling us to be ready for eternity. Nothing can be more significant: “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 once he comes in and knocks.” Jesus masterfully uses events from everyday life to illustrate spiritual truth. The point Jesus conveys is that He is the master who is going to return. Our job is to be ready.
Whatever else my daily agenda needs to hold for today, my first job is to be dressed for action. Be ready. I love this teaching because it reminds us that the Christian life is not some passive existence. The Christian life is a life of action. Yes, we are waiting for the Lord, but that doesn’t mean we are sitting on our laurels. We are busy doing the things Jesus called us to do so that when He returns He will find us ready. If you aren’t at the ready there will be no time to get ready.
A great way to make this a way of life is to begin the habit of praying this Scripture. Lord, help me to stay dressed and ready for action today. “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12).