Are you married? If so, do you remember your wedding day? I recently read a story of a bride who had her whole wedding hijacked by an overbearing mother-in-law to be. The bride wanted a small, intimate wedding with their closest friends. She had an elaborate social event of the season with four hundred guests. The bride only knew twenty of those four hundred.
It all started when the happy couple told the groom’s parents they only wanted a small engagement party, like a backyard barbeque. The mother of the groom said she didn’t want to entertain in her home so she moved to a more appropriate location. That location turned out to be the country club patio and the intimate occasion had one hundred sixty people attend.
Needless to say, the bride didn’t get what she wanted. She didn’t get what she expected. She had no one to blame but herself. It was her wedding and it was up to her to make the preparations. Instead, she allowed others to take over the preparations without consulting her and she got what she got…disappointment and dissatisfaction. She wanted a do over, but many times in life there aren’t do overs. Some things are a once in a lifetime.
So where am I going with this? We, the church, are the bride of Christ. We are responsible for making ourselves ready for the wedding with the Lamb [Revelation 19:7]. We have to take personal responsibility in the preparations. We can’t count on our pastors, Sunday School teachers, parents or Bible study leaders to make us ready. We simply can’t defer to another.
How do we make ourselves ready? How do we prepare? We get to know our Bridegroom and what is important to Him. We spend time with Him daily [Deuteronomy 10:12, Psalm 63:4, Luke 1:37, John 17:11, 21]. We rid ourselves of anything impure [Psalm 51:10, 1 John 1:9].
We cannot neglect our preparations and expect it to go the way we want when Christ returns any more than this bride could neglect her wedding preparations and have the dream wedding she wanted.
It’s time to get busy. There’s a wedding in your future and you want to be ready when the Bridegroom arrives.
Mark 13:32-37: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back– whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!'”