Will you be ready when the Lord shall come? 2x
Chorus: I will be ready 2x
I will be ready when the Lord shall come.
We used to sing this song a lot in church when I was growing up. Different pastors would accompany the song with: "Are you ready? What will you be doing when Jesus comes?!! Make your ways straight so that you won't miss the Rapture..?!!" in dramatic, booming, preaching voice- like when TD Jakes is really in the flow of things. I'd sing the song with fellow churchgoers while remembering some things that weren't quite sorted out in my life and the laws I wasn't keeping and know that I was lying when I sang "I will be ready."
I knew I didn't love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength. My family members and my neighbour that I had a crush on were already occupying some of that space anyway. Even going to church camp was a huge chore talk less of leaving my family for a mission trip. I knew I didn't love my neighbour as myself too. In fact, I strongly disliked two aunties in particular in the church.
Plus, how can anyone love someone that is presented as just waiting for you to sin so that he can unleash his wrath on you? How can anyone love someone that Pastor said allowed a car to crush someone as she left church because she did not give her life to Christ during altar call? Worse, I heard church leaders saying that it is "God's will" when babies or young people died. These wrong beliefs formed our thoughts about God. I had no idea how wrong we were. I had no idea that God didn't expect me to keep the law in order to be godly and make it to heaven. I had no idea that God so loved me that He sent His own Son to suffer for me and die my death so that I won't perish but have eternal life.
While the songwriter of "Will you be ready..." and the preachers that we heard might have had good intentions, their teaching totally contradicts the truth about our salvation in Christ. No one can ever be ready when the Lord comes if it depended even a tiny bit on human effort at being righteous- "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3:20.
Believer, this is the only reason why we will be ready when the Lord Jesus Christ returns for His saints: John 3:16 and Romans 5:9-
"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."
Revelation 16:1 says: "Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”"
This is the great tribulation- God's wrath on the earth. His word tells we who believe: "And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."
Believer, God did not put NEVER in this verse just to fill up space. NEVER means NEVER, and not because we kept the law or did anything to earn it but "because of the sacrifice of Jesus". But false preachers say that the sacrifice of Jesus is not enough to make the sinner who believes righteous or save us from God's wrath- you have to add your own works. They tell you that unless you get your act together and "be ready" by yourself, you will experience God's wrath.
We who believe (having Christ as our righteousness and no longer striving to keep the law in order to be godly) won't be here to experience God's wrath on earth aka the great tribulation because we would have experienced the final delivery in the package of our salvation that Christ fully paid for at the cross: our bodily redemption in Christ which takes place at the Rapture.
Our salvation in Christ - including salvation from sins, sickness, lack, stupid mistakes, infertility, oppression by Satan and all earthly ills as well as our bodily redemption which is the Rapture - is a whole package that Christ paid for at the cross. It is like ordering many items from Amazon in a single order- Christ fully paid for everything, even though they don't all arrive physically at the same time. Today's delivery might be health. Tomorrow, salvation from depression. He daily loads us with His benefits. He paid for it all, the final delivery being our bodily redemption at the Rapture. But many people are trying to buy/earn their own salvation with works of the law. This has dire consequences:
"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace." Galatians 5:4.
Our salvation from sin and death is a gift of Grace. The gift of God is eternal life. Trying to earn it by human effort at doing cuts one off from Christ. Sin also has dominion here: "For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under Grace."Romans 6:14.
All believers are imperfect people standing in Christ's perfection and are being transformed by His Spirit. Our paths grow brighter and brighter like the morning sun. None of us have it all together by ourselves. Christ is our righteousness. In the words of Paul in Philippians 3:9, 12-13:
9 "and become one with Him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith.
12 "I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us."
See the TPT: 12 "I admit that I haven’t yet acquired the absolute fullness that I’m pursuing, but I run with passion into His abundance so that I may reach the purpose that Jesus Christ has called me to fulfill and wants me to discover. 13 I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead."
None of us have arrived yet and we do not depend on our own strength to accomplish perfection. Whatever the level of our imperfection, we all have one perfect Person in common: the Lord Jesus Christ. For us, He is Jehovah Tsidkenu - The Lord our Righteousness.
No matter how bent, rusty, twisted or straight each paper clip is, some of them have have one thing in common - a magnetic metal within. Some paper clips look straight and beautiful but have no magnetic metal within. Magnets cannot pull them out of the pile. Some look ugly, bent and rusty as if a person could get tetanus from touching them, but pass a magnet over them and they will jump out of the pile immediately.
For the believer in Christ, the magnetic metal within the paper clip is akin to God's gift of righteousness to us in Christ. We have HIM in common. We did not earn this gift of righteousness by obeying the law or by being good and so cannot lose it when we sin or mess things up. Rather, Christ saves us from our sins as it is written of Him in Matthew 1:21- "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
If the Rapture should happen right now, every believer that has Christ as his/her righteousness will be transformed to our new body and caught up in the air with our Saviour Jesus Christ to be with Him forever. No matter the state of imperfection that the paper clip that is our life is in- whether extremely rusty, red, yellow, bent, painted, encased in plastic, or just ok- all who possess the "magnetic metal" that is God's gift of righteousness to us in Christ will be pulled up by the magnet that is the Rapture. In the meantime, while we look forward to His glorious appearing, our Saviour Jesus Christ is doing His work in all who have been drawn to Him by our Heavenly Father: John 6:43-46 (MSG)-
"Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over Me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent Me is in charge. He draws people to Me —that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do My work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End."
It's not about us making ourselves ready for when the Lord shall come by human effort like the song says. Christ Himself makes us ready for the End.
Once the believing is right, right living will follow.
http://rightbelieving101.blogspot.com/2018/11/will-you-be-ready-when-lord-shall-come.html?m=1
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