What does it mean to be ready?  Do you feel ready?  If you don’t that is a component of defining your belief and understanding surrounding readiness.  Readiness includes being completely prepared, equipped, adjusted, arranged, educated or fit for an immediate action or event.  There is also a component of willingness involved, for example being “ready to forgive”.  That unease or lack of confidence when asked about your preparedness is the conscience based alert telling us that something is missing, lacking or in an unprepared state.  Christianity requires honesty and a steadfast adherence to truth.  The truth is we as a “body” of Christians are far from ready.  Considering, the Lord Jesus, the prophets and the Apostles all continually commanded, recommended and preached readiness, then essentially, we have not “believed” the Word of God.

Where did we fall down?  I think we stumbled in complacency, exhaustion, fear and laziness.  We have become complacent in our comfort, forgoing the commitment to hear and obey the Word of God thinking ourselves sufficient when we are actually, “poor, naked, tired and alone”.  We have become exhausted, depending upon our own faculties and strength, forgetting that our peace, energy, direction and comfort are found only in Christ Jesus.  We have become afraid of enemy threats, decay, intimidation, widespread wickedness or the probability of persecution that is increasingly facing those dedicated to the Faith.  We have abandoned our call the readiness and action forgetting the choice which once set us free and the Words of the one “we serve”.  We are no longer slaves to sin, but we have forgotten that we are now slaves to righteousness.  And as good slaves we should be compelled to obey the Lord’s call to readiness.

Can we be prepared?  Yes.  The Lord clearly stated that there would be, two in the field or at the mill and one of them would be taken.  So it is clear that some will be prepared, but the horrible reality is that others will not.  How do we put the “oil” in our lamps so that when the Master comes we will have the light necessary to see our steps to safety?  There are those who will wish to argue with me but the oil is obviously the “Holy Spirit” residing within each born again Christian.  This is supported by the Word as the Holy Spirit is what seals each Christian for eternity.  The Lord Jesus would not let the Apostles leave Jerusalem until they received the indwelling of the Spirit and once they had they were “ready” to do the work for which He had prepared them.

So how do we get the Spirit?  We ask through prayer, accept the Blessing when it comes and then honor the Lords reconfiguration of our hearts and minds.  If there are no fruits of the Spirit in any believer’s life then it is pretty safe and sane to say that the Spirit has not yet come.  We must be honest with ourselves and each other when it comes to the topic of readiness.  This is not something for which we can afford to be wrong.  Ask the Lord for His Holy Spirit and then seek the evidence of His presence in your life and the lives of your families.  We cannot guess the motivation of a man’s heart, but everyone knows genuine faith when they see it.  The Spirit’s leading is obvious, but even if we falsely believe ourselves, righteous, that does not forgive us for not surrendering to the Lord’s continuing attempts to mold and shape us.

We must consistently make ourselves “ready” by being “willing” to receive the Spirit’s guidance, rebuke and prompting.  Not being able to clearly discern the Will of God for your life is pretty solid evidence that He may not be present.  Just as the Jewish People did not hear from Him for four hundred years, you should be a bit alarmed if you cannot determine what the Lord is saying to you.  Unlike the Jews the Lord told us that He will never leave us or forsake us, so if he isn’t speaking either we have forced Him out of our lives, or even more frightening is that He was never present.  The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord.  That fear should be, that because we have not accepted the Lord into our lives, and been sealed for eternity by Spirit that we are still subject to His Wrath to Come.  That should frighten every fiber of our souls.

Becoming ready for the things to come requires understanding Prophecy.  Get in your Bibles, join a mature study group that is committed to learning what will soon happen as part of God’s unfolding plan.  Then once you know, the desire for readiness will become apparent and necessary.  Keep oil in your lamps so that when the Lord comes at an day and hour that no man knows, He will find you ready and accept you into His bosom that very moment.  Do not fear man in His attempts to label you foolish for being ready, for the eyes of men have been veiled to the truth that is God.  Men have been turned over to the lie of their own imaginations and wickedness.  Be strong and stand against the wiles of the enemies of God in their attempt to cull you from the ranks of Christianity.  Stay close to your Christian Brothers and Sisters, collectively armored in Faith and Righteousness, Truth, Salvation, Peace and Word of Almighty God, safe from the Wrath to Come.