Repent

One morning while I was having my worship and devotional time, a childhood memory flashed before me. I recalled an incident that had happened years before while I was living in the Caribbean and was still a teenager, maybe even younger. A certain man —I cannot remember his name, so I’ll refer to him as Mr. B— was a self-made pastor. He would take the passenger bus each day from the town where he was living and travel to another part of the country. His one message was always the same: “If you don’t repent, you must burn!” Only he would say it in the Jamaican way: “Burn, you must burn if you don’t repent!” This individual would repeat his message several times as people entered and exited the bus. As teenagers, we thought his behavior was really funny, if not annoying. We would laugh and jeer, but Mr. B was dead serious.

Sometimes he held up his Bible in his hand as he shouted out that message —the same message— every single day. In fact, I never heard him say anything else. Mr. B wasn’t a trained pastor, so he didn’t know how to convey the message of salvation in a manner that was more polished. When I study the Word of God, I believe each book is conveying the same message but in its own unique and positive way. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31, NKJV).

The Lord is calling us to faith, repentance, and obedience: “Whoever walks blamelessly will be saved” (Proverbs 28:18, NKJV).

Many of us are ignoring the promises and the warnings and living as if we had another thousand years on this earth before Jesus comes.

Folks, are we ready for Jesus to come? He is pleading with us to be ready. Let us not be like the five foolish virgins who were not prepared to meet the bridegroom. Let us be ready. Jesus, in Matthew 25:13, admonishes us to “watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming” (NKJV).

He counsels us in Matthew 24:44: “Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (NKJV).

Are you ready for Jesus to come?

Patricia Hines