Stay Ready

“Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning” is a bluesy spiritual first sung by slaves on the plantation and then later while fighting the Civil War.
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Take a listen.

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The message continues to echo today.

• Stay alert.
• Help is on the way.
• The end of being used, abused, and enslaved is coming.
• Freedom and safety are near.

Matthew, one of Jesus’ disciples, records Jesus saying the same message in Matthew 25.

There is a wedding. As the bride walks in, ten bridesmaids are waiting for the groom with torches lit. They don’t know when he’s arriving, but they know it’s soon.

Five bridesmaids brought extra oil for their lamps, not knowing how long they might be waiting. But, unfortunately, five of them didn’t get any excess oil.

So, the bridesmaids without oil asked the ones with oil if they could use some of theirs. The answer is that there is not enough to go around.

Midnight comes, and the groom arrives. The bridesmaids without oil are out trying to find some. The bridesmaids who had the extra oil meet the groom, and the wedding goes on.

When the bridesmaids without extra oil arrived back at the wedding, the ceremony had begun, and they could not participate in the marriage.

An interesting story.

Here’s the point: Be and stay ready because Jesus is coming soon.

Keep your hearts trimmed and burning… for Christmas… and His final Christmas.

• Stay alert by reading God’s Word because Jesus is coming.
• Hold onto hope that the best is still to come - help is on the way because Jesus is coming.
• Live lives of continuous and humble repentance because Jesus is coming.
• Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus’ arrival because Jesus is coming.

This is Jesus’ Christmas wish for us.

Keep your heart ready like you have this advent season because Jesus has promised to come again, not only at Christmas but again very soon (Revelation 22:7).

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