“Therefore
be ye also ready…” – Matthew 24:44
“I stay
ready to keep from having to get
ready.” Did you ever hear someone say that? It’s a good policy. We all know
it’s easier to keep a house clean by doing a little something every day than it
is to start at the point of chaos! Yet, how many of us conscientiously follow
that regimen? In the case of housekeeping, the consequences may not eternal, or
even life altering, but this is not true in others. For instance, in the
parable Jesus gave in Matthew twenty-five of the ten virgins, the five foolish ones
missed the bridegroom because they weren’t ready in time.
You’ll look in vain for a reference in
God’s Word telling us to get ready,
but numerous ones telling us to be ready.
Be ready to give and answer about your faith, when asked (1 Pet. 3:15); be
ready to give of your finances for the Lord’s work (2 Cor. 9:1-5); be ready to
preach the Gospel, if God has called you (Rom. 1:15); to be ready with good
works (1 Tim. 6:18 & Tit. 3:1); and most important of all, be ready to
offer ourselves in death, when the time comes (2 Tim. 4:6); or as the last part
of Matthew 24:44 says, be ready to see Him, if Jesus Christ returns before we
die.
When I think of being ready, I’m
reminded of the back burners on a stove, the ones not meant for preparing food,
but simply for keeping it warm…and ready. Let’s apply these characteristics of
a back burner as I point them out.
First, as I said, a back burner is for food already prepared. Unless you
want to spend a very long time waiting, don’t try to start from scratch on one
of them. I’ve heard the Christian life described as a crisis that becomes a
process. It’s a “new birth” that begins a process of maturity. Whatever
preparation of heart may precede it, the birth itself is complete and final,
needing only maturation.
Second, if the food is kept warm, it
only takes a minute or two to heat it all the way up to the perfect temperature
for consumption. (If you’re like me, you like good, hot soup.) And if you give it a good stir, the process works even
faster. If you’ve been spending time alone with God daily, absorbing the wisdom
and principles in His Word regularly, the answer you need and the warmth of
Holy Spirit power will be close at hand and heart.
Last, but not least, the whole idea of
keeping food warm on the back burner is to feed someone that’s hungry, because
you never know when that “someone” may show up. It may be family, friends, or
even a perfect stranger, but everyone, everywhere, is hungry for one thing or
another at different times in their lives; and the man or woman who will most
likely have what they need at that particular is the man or woman who’s had food
for the soul on the back burner, for a long time.
Now that my husband doesn’t have a busy,
public ministry that brings him home at all hours, and my children are all
gone, I don’t have to keep things warm on the back burners of my stove very
often; but the fire of my “Spiritual back burner” always needs to be burning…low,
but steady. I want to be ready with a word of hope or exhortation, a song of
praise, or a helping hand. I want to be ready…always ready!
“The
fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.” – Lev. 6:13
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