Greetings friends,
The scripture this week, 1 Peter 3:13-17, in the ‘Decidedly Different’ series makes me think of a survival or crisis preparedness kit. We read in verses 13-15 that we must worship Christ as Lord of our lives and if someone asks about our hope as a believer, we should always be ready to explain it. We must always be prepared for what is coming; we need to be ready for anything.
I think that the crises we have seen in our life time on a national and international scale have created awareness in most people that we need to be prepared for disaster. We are taught to be ready.
The town my Mom and sister live in was under a boil water advisory this week. I read on Facebook posts and news articles that stores were being emptied of bottled water and large shipments were on their way to meet the need. I feel certain that some people in Petrolia were prepared and didn’t have to give the boil water advisory a second thought because they were ready for whatever might come their way. They’ve had a water stockpile in their basement from the Y2K doomsday predictions, an inflatable rescue raft since hurricane Katrina and a propane heater from the ice storms that have crippled heat and power during the coldest of winter months. I’m not belittling the need to be prepared, I’m just wondering, do we put as much thought into being prepared spiritually as we do physically? I know that some people don’t heed the warnings to be prepared and hence you get a town of 4500 people rushing like crazy into stores, emptying shelves of water in a panic because they aren’t ready.
What extreme do you lean towards - are you always prepared or are you frantic when the time comes to be ready for something? What about in your ability to share the truth about Jesus? Are you ready and prepared for the questions that might come your way and the opportunities that may present themselves at any given time? Or are you more like a deer caught in headlights, unprepared to give an answer for your faith.
This week in our efforts to be decidedly different, we need to ask ourselves if we are ready to give an answer for our faith. Is our ‘just in case’ kit ready for sharing the gospel?
See you on Sunday!
Erin Jamieson