Are we READY for the King’s return?

The last trumpet blast shall sound, the dead in Christ shall be raised incorruptible spirit, and holy angels will be swooping down to collect the Bride of Christ, to be with Him forever (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; Matthew 24:30-31).  Many of us believe we are then whisked to God’s heaven where we marry Christ and THEN return triumphantly with our Maker – most likely on the Feast of Trumpets/Yom Teruah –in a future year that is rapidly approaching.

Are you ready to return with the Messiah ben David, the son of David but also the Son of God, to land on the Mount of Olives? Will you and I be there?  You will, if your name is entered into the Book of Life

1 Thessalonians 4:15-17

“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

If you answered “absolutely, yes, no question I’m ready for the King” – I’d ask you to be certain and look again. I say this because the condition of those waiting for the bridegroom, whose coming is delayed according to Christ’s own parable in Matthew 25:5, is alarming. All ten virgins slept. Even the wise ones. NONE of the ten were awake and ready. None. Let that sink in.

Yeshua also openly wonders out loud if He’ll find faith on the earth when he returns (Luke 18:8). Prophecies say in the end time “love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12).  Not a pretty state of the world – or the church. Look at Revelation 2-3 about the 7 churches. The Laodicean brethren are lukewarm and self-satisfied with their state. The Sardis believers are almost dead. Even Philadelphia has little strength. The churches before those are in various stages of allowing sin into their midst, except for Smyrna. You get the picture. The end time description of God’s people is nothing to write home about. That’s you. That’s me.

So I say “no”. I’m not ready, and I don’t see many who truly are.  They’re more committed to updating Facebook, or their prophetic timelines and charts, perhaps, than they are in growing closer to their Savior and Abba, their heavenly Daddy.

And yet, though our Master says he will return at a time “you think not” (Matthew 24:44), he also tells us through Paul that His coming should NOT come as a surprise to those who walk in the light (1 Thessalonians 5:1-5).  So it appears that unless we are very close to Him, many will be caught off guard and unprepared.

The point of this blog is to remind us of what Yeshua our King said: “BE ready” (Matthew 24:44).  We all can trend to think in terms of “I’ve got time to GET ready…later”, but that could be a disastrous way to think.

We’re now in the 7^th month of the Hebrew Calendar. We are now coming before our Master on 4 holydays in rapid succession.  Be sure to hear this year’s and last year’s messages on the meaning of Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets.  There’s overlap in both sermons, but also different focus in each one as well as we keep His holydays.

And yes, here we refer to them as “HOLY days”, divine appointments, not “holidays”. Now more than ever is the time to be waking up; to be trimming off the dead wicks from our lights and lamps so our lights shine brightly.  It’s time to be putting on the wedding garments granted to us. We need to be covering ourselves with our Master.

Yeshua (Jesus) is our Covering. HE is our husband. HE is our Master. HE is our King. He is our Savior.  HE is LORD of LORDS, King of Kings, for all praise and honor and glory forever and ever, Amen!  HE is what this day is all about to the glory of our Almighty God in the Highest, our dear Abba, and Father of the House of God. 

Click to the right “Continue Reading” to read the conclusion of “Are you READY?”  We’ll define what “being ready” means.

 What’s the difference between “getting ready” and “being ready”?  And remember, Yeshua says to BE ready – Matthew 24:44.

When you focus on “being ready”, you recognize that our puny lives can end at any time. Then for us, our next moment of consciousness will be facing our Master and King. The “end time” and “the last days” can be – for any one of us – right now, tomorrow, or the next day, with the next heartbeat.  We can’t risk not being ONE with our Savior. We can’t risk it.

If you are ready, it won’t matter how many more years you have to live. It won’t even matter whose prophetic charts end up being right. My hunch is that we’ll all find out that nobody had it quite right and that there will be twists and turns that will still surprise many of us.

I remember in 1988, there were articles such as “88 Reasons” why the Rapture would occur that year.   But they were wrong. What they should have focused on is to BE ready, regardless if our Savior were to come right away or decades from now. What matters is our relationship.

To “be ready” to me, means these things, and no doubtyou could add more points: 

• You are right with God. You have repented of your sins and have accepted Yeshua – out loud, in your own voice – as your personal Savior, Lord, King and Master. Read Romans 10:8-13 out loud.We continue to repent each day for areas where we have fallen short and ask for strength to get back into the spiritual fight.
  
  
• We have been baptized by immersion by a true spirit-filled servant of God, and had hands laid on your head as prayer was made over each of us, requesting the gift of the Holy Spirit (the Ruach HaKodesh) of YHWH, our Father.
  
  
• We are following the lead of the Holy Spirit as we root out sin from our lives wherever we see it. And we are praying for Abba to open our eyes to see the deceitfulness of sin still lurking in the cracks and crevices of our lives. You stir up the Spirit. You are regularly asking for more and more of the Spirit (Luke 11:13). It is God’s spirit that empowers us to obey (Ezekiel 36:27). We are resisting sin in its many devious forms. We are resisting Satan’s temptations. We are fighting sin with the power of God’s spirit and the covering of our Lord. 
  
  
• We are God’s House of Prayer, the LIVING temple of God.We pray on our knees at least twice a day and make contact with God many times throughout the day. Please hear my recent sermon on this. We have removed the rubbish from the holy of holies – your mind – in which resides the shekinah glory of the Highest. We realize we not only stand on holy ground, we ARE holy ground when Yah’s spirit is inside us. And we live accordingly.
  
  
• We immerse ourselves in the washing of the word of God, every day.  We spend more time in Bible study than we do Facebook. We have so many tools available today. We can buy or download the Bible in audio and listen to it on the way to work or back home. But most of all, every day we spend some time in the book without distractions, without noise and with full attention. 
  
  
• We have come to understand that in the new covenant, the just LIVE by faith. We are saved by faith and grace. HE is the Savior. So our faith is in HIM – not in our own efforts; not in our own works (Titus 3:3-7). HE is our righteousness, which we receive graciously by faith, as one of God’s gifts (Romans 5:17; Philippians 3:9-10; Gal. 2:20-21). 
  
  
• We let Yeshua live again in us. We follow. We obey. We walk as He walked, for HIS life is now our life, or we’re frauds (1 John 3:3-6). We LET His mind be in us (Philippians 2:5) to transform us, to really change us (Romans 12:1-2).  We repent when we sin - - daily. We ask forgiveness daily and then rejoice in His covering. The life we now live is not our own, as we were crucified with Christ, but the life we now live is HIM living in us, by faith. Gal. 2:20-21.
  
  
• We are growing to become more and more like Yeshua – “until Christ is formed in you”, and until we reach the fullness of the stature of Christ (Gal. 4:19; Eph 4:12-13). Over time, the changes and spiritual maturity in our lives is becoming more and more evident to others – especially those we live with, those who know us best. In short, we are growing in the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).
  
  
• You focus more on RELATIONSHIPS than you do on knowledge. You delight more in loving God and loving fellow mankind – the two greatest commandments -- than you do learning new tid-bits of information about the this or that. Too many are knowledge based, and not relationship-based. Life now – and for eternity – is about relationships!
   
• Being ready requires diligence, vigilance and continued effort to abide in Him. It’s not a onetime event or fait accompli.  No, it’s an ongoing determination to always walk with the King. That’s the secret. Our hard work is to work hard to abide in Him. And “in Him”, we will bear much fruit (John 15:5). In fact HE bears HIS fruit in us (Philippians 1:11).  HE works in us, both to will and to do His good pleasure (Philippians 2:12-13). Salvation is HIS work. HE is the Savior.
  

Let’s pray: Come, dear Master. Cleanse us. Help us grow in your image, to be more and more like you. That’s the image we want – YOU. Live in us. Help us BE ready for you and may we hear your encouragement and commendation at your coming – “Well done, good and faithful servant, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.”  And thank YOU, Master. Thank you, praise you, for everything you are and have been to us. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for enlightening our lives. Thank you for giving us hope. Thank you for the joy we can look forward to, even in the midst of more and more horrors here on earth.  We love you. We bow in worship to you. We can’t wait to be with you – forever and ever, Beloved.  And we worship you and our Father through your Spirit. In your name, Amen and Amen. 

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