October 13, 2009
Dressed and Ready
When I get dressed in the mornings I’d like to be dressed for the day, but sometimes I feel like I’m going in and out a revolving closet door. My around-the-house work clothes aren’t proper for an afternoon meeting, neither is my business attire always appropriate for an evening event. Spiritually speaking, believers aren’t supposed to change clothes like an actor on a stage. Jesus says, “Stay dressed for action…be like men who are waiting for their master…open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.” (Luke 12:35-36 ESV) I think this means that when He returns, the Lord expects us to be wearing something more than a spiritual nightshirt.
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Gail;
-----One of my favorite jokes from childhood goes like this: Why did the traffic light turn red? You would too if you had to change in front of all those people. The analogy of clothing for spiritual readiness breaks down here - changing in public. Scripture speaks so many messages from one passage because it speaks principle, and principle fills the form of whatever container into which it is poured. Principle does not change, to be certain, but its various elements are accentuated differently by the particulars of each situation to which it applies. So to it is with being dressed for action, waiting for the Master, and being ready to open the door immediately when He knocks.
-----For the person who has just become convinced that Jesus is real and ready to accept and save his soul, the knock has been heard, the door opened, and the clothing is being changed from that of deceptive darkness to the rising light of the truth. While now abiding in the light, the knocking does not cease. As the light shines brighter, every element of the old life, each in its due course of time, becomes exposed. Each exposure is a knocking, a door to be opened, and an article of dress to be changed. Certainly there comes the day when an angel with a sickle comes a reaping, the day which presses at the back of each mind for proper clothing and a quick, calm, and steady hand to open the door.
-----But between rebirth into new life and passing from this physical life into eternal life, Jesus also comes a knocking in daily events. Just as “the least of these my brethren” in Matthew 25:31-46 references every last one who is alive in Christ, the hunger, the thirst, the strangeness, the nakedness, the sickness, and the incarceration means every possible situation of need: spiritual, emotional, intellectual, interrelational, and physical. Every time someone in front of you is in real need of a smile, Jesus is at your door knocking. Every time your neighbor needs a concept explained, an attitude girded, a cup of sugar, a fence mended, or a ride to the hospital, Jesus is there knocking. Does your closet contain a set of clothes necessary for every need? Most likely not. Should its variety be expanding? At least somewhat. Yet the pertinent question is; should you be able to change quickly when you answer the knock and see a need for which your closet is supplied? Yes. And without turning red.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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