Watching AND Ready

Jesus' commands are invitations. You are not His unless you say "yes" to His invitations. You can do a bunch of things in His name, but if He isn't leading you, you simply aren't His.

Most of what the Church spends it's time doing, according to Revelation 2 and 3, misses the mark of His leadership. Religion, formulas, and man-based movements will be rejected by Jesus. Only those submitted to the fullness of His leadership will be embraced by the Lord.

Revelation 2:2-5 NKJV — “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; “and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.

Jesus offers similar invitations to the other 6 churches in Revelation 2 and 3. Even Smyrna and Philadelphia are warned/invited to not lose what He has given them already. Luke 12 offers us a similar invitation. If we don't accept it, we will find that we are not His. It is a command, but His commands are voluntarily obeyed. The consequences are eternal!

This invitation below is similar to the one offered to Sardis in Revelation 3, but if you mine it out, He extends this same invitation to all 7 churches.

Luke 12:35-40 NKJV — *“Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; “and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately.

Watching and ready is the only option for those yoked to Jesus.

Watching means what it means: we watch the signs of the times, we watch the news, we watch the state of the global human spirit. We watch for what the word tells us will happen and we use what we see to fuel faith and not doubt. We watch for where we fall into the pattern of the world.

* “Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. “And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.

This is a night and day "watch and pray" reality. You cannot be ready on your own. This is what Peter learned at Gethsemane. You can't even measure your readiness. You can only measure your unreadiness in humility. That is called spiritual poverty.

Where are you unloving, impatient, un- joyful, un-good, un-self controlled, un-peaceful, etc?

You will find the pressure of judgment is designed to mine this out... To show you where you get impatient, hateful, indifferent, discouraged, doubtful... Where you burst out in wrath, etc. The world will be found out by judgment, the church is supposed to be a witness of the pretest! Fasting, prayer, generosity... These are the pretest to judgment.

For example: Fasting makes you uncomfortable... It exposes your impatience in discomfort so you can PRAY and ask God to change you. You can't change you. Only God can, but He won't unless you specifically ask. You won't ask if you can't see what you need.

24/7 prayer is NOT mostly about God changing the nations. 24/7 prayer is mostly about God exposing you to you and changing you. Read the Psalms. They are what David's Tabernacle was mostly about. Most of the global prayer movement has entirely missed this and deflects all the power to become a bride onto the people they think God should change. God will answer this false judgment with judgment. The church will be held accountable to the standard of behavior she expects/deflects onto the world instead of embracing for herself at the deepest level possible.

The watching and ready are humble. They see THEY deserve judgment, welcome it in advance, and avoid the pain of it bely asking God to correct them as the main purpose of their lives.

Back to Luke 12:

*“But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

No one "knowing the day or hour" is the reason we are supposed to WATCH with an OPINION of when He is coming. The flesh hates this, because having an opinion requires an actual response. If you think wrongly about the correct response to Jesus' return, then having an actual opinion about it means you have to live differently.

I'll say that again, " If you think wrongly about the correct response to Jesus' return, then having an actual opinion about it means you have to live differently."

The right response to the end times is sanctification. If that isn't already your main focus, you really aren't under the leadership of Jesus. Having an actual opinion of when Jesus is returning should simply fuel what you should be doing anyway: getting ready to live with Jesus forever. Learning to live His leadership in every area of life.

The correct response to Jesus' return is an all-in embrace of the gospel. It is not to save up money, get in a physically safe place with like minded individuals. It isn't to prepare for "hard times" in the flesh, quit school, quit paying bills, get out of debt... Etc. These are flesh (false) responses to the return of Jesus.

The correct response to the return of Jesus is simply SANCTIFICATION like your eternal life depends on it... Which it does either way.

The return of Jesus is fuel to become sanctified, which you signed up for anyway.

Only one thing is broken, and therefore, only one thing is required: to learn to live under the leadership of God in every area of your life which should lead you to learn to love people, even enemies, and cout others better than yourself. To become a generous, free, non-anxious, unafraid and unashamed follower of Jesus.

If you really believe this, and you really believe you can't change you, only God can, then you would pray with others about God changing you, more and more, until He returned. That is what the Bible says to do:

Hebrews 10:22-29 NKJV — let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

This ^ is the entire point of David's Tabernacle, or the end time prayer movement.

The House of Prayer isn't about conquering the mountains of culture. It isn't about a global unity movement in the church. It isn't about good music attracting the world to Jesus, or releasing the "sound" that shakes the heavens. *It isn't about human might or power.* It IS about grace, grace, grace. It is about not despising the small and hidden nature of a seed becoming a tree. It is about faith, not flesh.

It's about watching, being ready, and being a witness for others to watch and be ready. You can't make yourself ready, you can only pray about how you aren't.

If you do and teach others this, then Jesus will come and find you worthy of discipling the nations with Him for 1,000 years. If He finds you doing anything else, you will be rejected by Him. He is looking for faith.

Luke 18:7-14 NKJV — “And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? “I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Put both of these parables together and you will see the fullness of what night and day prayer is actually for: watching and being ready.