Have you ever sat at a train station without your watch on, and wanted to know the time, but when you look around you there isn’t a clock in sight or anybody to ask the time? Did the bus or train come? And did it really matter that you didn’t know the exact time? Did you still do what you had to do?
By being at the train station you were ready for the arrival of the train, you may not have known exactly when that would be but you had the faith and knowledge that it would happen. And just like the fact that you knew you had to be at the train station, and get on a train from a – b you had to do several things to prepare for that journey, you probably had leave your house, get to the train station, buy your ticket, get to the right platform, and get on the right train. Now let’s substitute that train for Jesus. We know that Jesus will return, we as Christians have the faith and knowledge that he will arrive and take us to his final destination, but just like waiting at the station we are not too sure about when that will be, but just like your preparation to get on that train we as Christians have to Prepare and be ready for his coming!
If we look at the 1st half of this chapter (verses 1-11) we find out a few things, the 1st being that we as Christians belong and live in the light, and by living in the light we are safe in the knowledge that when Jesus does come again, we will stay in the light! But Paul warns us that by being in the light we must be awake and have self-control and that we should not do the things that people who are asleep do, for example verse 7 states about getting drunk, its clear that when we are drunk we are living in the night, we have lost our self control and when we loose our self control we cannot be living in the light!
It tells us how to protect ourselves – in order for us to protect ourselves we need to wear Faith & Love, for me the wording of ‘wearing’ would mean its on display, just as people can see what t-shirt you may be wearing, we need to actively show our faith in Jesus, and the love that he had for other people in our own day to day lives. The other important thing in this half of the chapter is verse 11, how often do we criticise our friends or family when they do something wrong? Let us use this week as a real turning point in our own lives to notice the positive things that people are doing and pick up and encourage them on those things instead of making them weak and downhearted by picking on the bad points.
The second half of the chapter is a list of final instructions for us to make sure we are ready, obviously different instructions will stick out for each of you but verses 16,17 and 18 really stuck out to me:
These things for me, especially at the moment are a real challenge. The 1st of these is to always be joyful: its amazing how we all strive to be positive in our day to day lives but we let the small things, the insignificant really alter the way we feel, and I believe this is the devil at work. Why do we never read good news stories in a newspaper or hear about the good that’s going on in the community on local news or radio? Its because the enemy would rather us see the bad that’s going on the give significance to the good that’s happening! The next is to pray continually and always be thankful, its amazing if you listen to people when they pray it usually sounds like this….Dear God/Lord/Father, I need your help….I would like….if I do this……etc etc. What would happen if we were to pray Lord/God/Father thank you for today thank you for the things you’ve given to me today, if we are to pray positively to the lord then the enemy cant get hold of it and turn those prayers against you.
If anything this chapter has made me look at being more positive for God, lets go out there and share that positivity that we have in knowing Jesus as our Eternal Saviour and start letting other people experience that joy that can be given through that knowledge that when he comes, we are safe in the knowledge that we will be going to a better place the only question is……..will you be ready?
