“Anticipation is an essential component of spiritual maturity.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – November 23, 2024
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. Luke 12:35-37, ESV
As a child, I loved to play sports, especially baseball and basketball. If I knew I had a game on Saturday, I’d spend the entire week in eager anticipation, throwing a ball in the yard with my dad or working on my shooting form by taking practice shots. Yet one of the primary ways I prepared was ensuring the night before a game that I had every part of my uniform pressed and ready to go. In fact, to ensure that I would be ready, I would often sleep in my uniform the night before a game, just to ensure I would wake up ready for action!
These moments of childlike innocence come to mind when I read the words of today’s passage, especially verse 37: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes.” Anticipation is an essential component of spiritual maturity. Anticipation is also closely linked to the deepest loves of our hearts. I loved playing sports, and it was from that love that my actions flowed. If I’d been forced to play a sport and didn’t enjoy it, chances are I would have left the uniform crumbled up under a pile of dirty clothes, and my mom and dad would have had to drag me out of bed in time to make the game. Similarly, if our hearts are not filled with love for Jesus and a passion for his kingdom, we will not joyfully spring into service in his name. Yet if we love our master and our greatest desire is to honor him with thankful hearts, we will “stay dressed for action,” anticipating and eagerly looking for ways to honor him through our words and deeds.
Our lives are filled with countless opportunities to serve the Lord Jesus. What’s required of us is an alert attentiveness to these opportunities. It is far too easy to be so consumed with our own wants and desires, or the cares and concerns of life that press in upon us, that these opportunities pass right in front of our faces, and we never see them. And so, for us to live dressed and ready for action, we must learn to empty ourselves of an unhealthy concern with self, and instead discover the freedom and joy that is found in a life of active, alert, and attentive service of others in the name of Christ.
Prayer
Father, wake us up to the needs and opportunities that are around us each and every day, and give us the courage to walk in the joy and freedom of service through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Application
What opportunity do you have to serve in Christ’s name today?
Related Reading
Matthew 24:42; Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thessalonians 5:6
Worship Resource
Jeremy Riddle: Jesus Have it All
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