What NOT to Have

Luke 12:35 “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36 and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! 39 But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Yesterday we finished chapter 11 with Jesus calling out the religious leaders for their self-righteousness. This chapter begins with Him telling His followers to not have the same hypocrisy those leaders had. He then goes on to tell them (and us) to have no fear when it came to proclaiming the Good News about Him. He next used a debate over an inheritance to warn them(and us) not have a focus on material possessions. Following that He told us to not have anxiety about whether we will have what we need: God will provide. We come now to the paragraph above where He warns us to not have any excuses why we are not ready for His return: they will not be accepted. Finally Jesus goes on to say that living without all of the above will not necessarily make life pleasant and easy all of the time: others will not understand and we will have to do some hard things.  Do not have unrealistic expectations.