Be Ready
It is important for you to understand what will happen in the last days. People will laugh at you. They will live following the evil they want to do. They will say, “Jesus promised to come again. Where is he? Our fathers have died, but the world continues the way it has been since it was made.” But don’t forget this one thing, dear friends: To the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord is not being slow in doing what he promised—the way some people understand slowness. But God is being patient with you. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He wants everyone to change their ways and stop sinning. But the day when the Lord comes again will surprise everyone like the coming of a thief. The sky will disappear with a loud noise. Everything in the sky will be destroyed with fire. And the earth and everything in it will be burned up. Everything will be destroyed in this way. So what kind of people should you be? Your lives should be holy and devoted to God.
2 Peter 3:3-4, 8-11 ERV
While playing in the NBA is a dream for many, a mere fraction of those dreamers ever get to step foot on the hardwood. Out of the more than 500,000 high school basketball players in the United States, only about 18,000 will play in the NCAA. Only about 4,500 of those college players will play on Division 1 teams, and only about 60 will make the NBA. That’s about 1.2% of NCAA college players and 0.03% of high school players having the unique mix of genetics, skill, opportunity, and work ethic to be considered for a spot among the best 450 players in the world.
Andre Ingram was among those with a dream to accomplish this goal. He had played basketball from a young age and had been good enough to average 22.8 points and 9.5 rebounds per game while shooting 49% from three-point range as he led his high school to their first championship in school history. He went on to American University and led his team in scoring all four years to become the school’s fifth all-time leading scorer. Not only was he good at basketball, but he was disciplined and intelligent enough to earn a degree in physics. He was good. He was lucky. Hr was talented. However, he wasn’t drafted into the NBA.
After not hearing his name called in the NBA draft, he went on to try his luck with the NBA Development League (now the G-League). He sat by and heard over 190 other names called before getting drafted in the seventh round to the Utah Flash. Ingram bounced around the D-League for over a decade. Most people would have given up, but he stayed hungry. He kept working and stayed ready.
Then one day in 2018, Andre Ingram, at 32 years of age, made his NBA debut as the second-oldest American rookie in history. He had been called up from the developmental league to play on the Lakers after 11 years of professional basketball. His 19 points were the most a Laker had scored in their first game since 1993, and the most any player has scored in a first game after the All-Star break since 1953.
Ingram stayed ready because he didn’t know when his shot would come. He believed so; he stayed prepared. He stayed in shape. He kept the faith. He kept his eyes on the prize regardless of how hard it got. He stayed focused regardless of how long it took, and when his name was called, he was ready. God is asking us to do the same thing.
If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing that Jesus is coming soon and that you should be ready forever. But it doesn’t seem like “soon” should last this long. It's like every generation seemed to believe it would be in their lifetime. Even some of the biblical writers over 2000 years ago believed this. It’s almost comical how each generation gets in a frenzy about the imminent coming of Jesus after any natural disaster or political push. It’s a cycle. We get on edge, then calm down, only to get on edge again when something crazy happens. The delay in the coming can make you wonder if this is even real in the first place, but if we are to have faith in the word of Jesus, we must believe that He was telling the truth.
In John 14, Jesus told us that He would go to prepare a place for us and then come back to take us with Him. In Acts, the apostles were told that the Jesus they saw ascend into heaven would come back down the same way. Hebrews says that Jesus will appear a second time to save those who have eagerly waited for Him, and in Revelation it says that He will come riding on the clouds and every eye will see Him. Jesus is coming back, but is it really soon? And if so, why is it taking so long? Like anything else God does, it’s for our good.
It may help to see time the way God does. Do the years seem to get shorter as you age? It’s not just because time flies when you’re having fun. It’s because our perception of time is relative. When you were 4 years old, the concept of waiting for your birthday felt like waiting for 1/4th of your existence because it was. The wait felt like it was almost forever because for you, it kinda was. But the older you get, the easier it is to wait a year because time feels like a smaller percentage of what you have experienced. The more you experience, what’s big to someone else isn’t as big to you. Now, imagine this for someone who existed at the beginning of time. Would 1000 years seem long to them? No. But it’s even deeper than that because it’s not just that God has been here a while based on our standards. He isn’t just old. He is outside of what we would identify as time.
The Bible actually argues that time isn’t the same to us as it is to God. God lives outside of time. Just as an author isn’t bound to the story they write, so is God not bound to time. If God made time, He doesn’t see it as something to be bound to. As the alpha and the omega, He experiences times beginning and times ending all at once. While we view time as one watches a parade, one float at a time or one moment at a time, God sees it like one watching a parade from a helicopter. He sees the entire thing at once. Past, present, and future. Start to finish. He’s outside of it, so He doesn’t have to wait for it.
Einstein's theory of relativity actually supports this. He argued that time is not rigid or universal—it is experienced differently based on your position and speed. If time behaves differently at the speed of light, wouldn’t it be different for a God who is described at light?
Peter argues that what we perceive as 1000 years feels like a day to God. We are in totally different spheres of understanding. The Bible says that God is not being slow as some of us may understand slowness. He delays His coming for our sake. Why? So that we can be ready.
Jesus wants us all to be saved if possible. He is like a superhero in a movie, holding up a collapsing building for as long as possible so that as many people who choose to get out safely can. He’s like Noah, trying to keep the ark open for as long as possible before the rain comes because He wants us to have an opportunity to be saved. He doesn’t want anyone to be lost. He wants everyone to be saved, and that’s good news.
But this all brings up another question. If Jesus is being patient so that more men can be saved, should I lose my sense of urgency? Does it matter if I’m serious about this? While I don’t think you should be afraid, I also don’t think you should be apathetic. Don’t delay your decision. Why? Because Jesus still says He is coming soon. The concept of Jesus coming soon isn’t about a calendar as much as it is about commitment. It’s not a call to count down days and prepare out of fear but it is a call to seek readiness. Here’s the deal. If you die on Monday and Jesus comes on Tuesday, you have the same amount of time as you would if you died on Monday and he came on a Friday one thousand years from now. It really doesn’t matter when Jesus comes. Whether He comes in two minutes or two millennia, what matters is if you’re ready.
After talking about the differences in our time and God’s, Peter reminds us that Jesus is coming like a thief. It’ll be unexpected. The Greek word “tachy” in Revelation 22:20 can also be used to describe something that is sudden. No one knows the day or hour, not even the angels or even Jesus. Only God the Father. You are wasting your time trying to predict it if you think that means you can just “slide in” at the last second. In Matthew 24, Jesus actually says that He is coming like a thief and if a man knew when a thief was coming, he would stay up all night to prepare. But because he doesn’t know, he always stays ready. This is how we should be. We need to get ready and stay ready because we don’t know when our number will be called.
To be ready isn’t to be perfect, it’s to be committed. It’s to be covered. God will be looking for those who have accepted the seal of His Holy Spirit. Accepting the gift of salvation is simple. It’s accepted through faith that produces fruit. Jesus in Luke 8, says that He is coming to help us quickly and that faith is what He will be looking for.
When you realize that Jesus is coming quickly to save you, you stop being anxious about the second coming. You stop worrying if you’re ready because you are. This concept is good news not only because the coming is still coming soon but because you can make the choice today as to whether or not He will be coming for you.
Salvation is simple and I have it. I’ve accepted the gift and now I'm waiting to get rescued. This is why James tells us to excitedly wait for His coming like a farmer waits for his crops. We know what has been planted and we are waiting for the harvest. Why? Because in 1 Thessalonians 4, we are told that God will come from heaven and with a shout and the sound of a trumpet, the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive will be taken up to join them in the air. We will be taken from the hell hole that is Earth and brought to heaven with our Savior.
Now, I didn’t really get this until I started getting older. As a kid, you want to experience life. You want to get married and have kids, and try life for yourself. And I still have some things that I would consider myself more than blessed to experience. But as you start living, you start to recognize that life isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. As we go through life and experience the hurts and hardships of this earthly journey, we begin to look forward to an escape. You start to want Jesus to come soon.
Get ready. Accept the gift of salvation. Then stay ready. Hold fast, as it says in Revelation, because your crown awaits. Stay committed to the faith. Jesus is going to show up suddenly to take you home.
