Are You Ready?

This Sunday is All Saints Sunday.  It is the time, each year, in which we honor those who have gone on to be with Christ.  This is referenced in various ways.  There is "passed."  Another is "died."  A third is "entered into glory."  Maybe your family has a special way to speak about those who have left this world and entered into the next.  One of my pastor friends (and he said this referring to his daughter) said, "she crossed over the Jordan before me."

This Sunday, we will read the names of those souls that people have given us (from a variety of places) and we will have a time of silence to remember them.  But my question is, are YOU ready?  When I ask this, most of you are thinking I am asking, "Am I ready to go and be with Christ, and am I ready to leave this world being saved and reconciled with God."  This is an important question, but I would like to see this in another way, as we consider Paul's referencing of "saints" from 1 Corinthians, 1.  In verse 2, the salutation reads, "To the Church of God which is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours."  He calls them saints, and sanctified ... are you ready to be called that?

Paul goes on.  "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blamless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (verses 4-7)."  My English teacher would have called that a "run on sentence."  I call it Paul's challenge to the Corinthians.

The Cornithians, as Paul writes his letter to them, are lacking many of the earmarks of the sainthood he expresses in his salutation.  They are caught up in their Greek penchant for philosophy, logic, and knowledge ... all of which Paul says lacks spiritual vision.  And, one of the worst criticisms, Paul tells these people, who are physical adults, he has fed them milk for they were not, and still are not, ready for solid food.  Now, reread the salutation.

1. He calls them what they should be, and need to be ... sanctified, and those who "call on the name of Jesus Christ."  Sanctified means that they have worked, struggled, strived to know God through His word, through active service, through applied love, through worship, and through sharing of their witness.  Are you ready for this?

2. He reminds them of the grace they have been given, and of the abundance of gifts they have been given to do the work of the saints.  He writes, "the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you will come short in no gift."  Paul is saying that the Corinthians have every gift they need for doing the work God has given them, both as a blessing and an expectation.  They are equipped.  But, are they (we) ready?

3. He tells them that, at the end of all things, they, as professing and practicing saints, their eternal salvation rests on their connection with Jesus, their only means of salvation.

They are called to be saints.  They are expected to be practicing/active Christians, who use their gifts to edify the Church.  And, they are held eternally accountable, so that God's grace and mercy and love will confirm you on the "day of our Lord, Jesus Christ."

Are you/we ready for this?  Are you an itenerate worker, willing to work till you earn enough to survive for awhile, and spending those resources till you run out, repeating this process over and over again?  Or, are you a son/daughter of the owner, invested in the inheritance the Master gives to all of His sons and daughters?

We have the gifts and resources needed to do what God is calling us to do.  So did the Corinthians.  The question is ... are we ready to be sanctified, so that God's Kingdom comes on earth, as it is in heaven?