Are You Really Ready? (Pt 1)

Luke 22:31,32, “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon! Indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” Oftentimes when we hear this verse, we pay more attention to the fact that Satan wants to sift Peter; sift as in ‘destroy, cause to fall, and try his faith.’ But I want us to look past Satan and let’s focus on Peter. Not on ‘why’ Satan wants to sift him; but more importantly on Peter’s response to the news.

Luke 22:33 says, ‘But he (Peter) said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” Wow! Peter’s response is heroic. He doesn’t even address the fact that God’s arch enemy, Satan, has personally asked to destroy him. Instead he tells the Lord, ‘I’m ready to go with You! ’Seems like an honorable response right?Not exactly.It’s actually a prideful one because he’s essentially telling the Lord, ‘Naw Lord! Satan don’t want to see me in these streets! I’m on another level. I’m ready to go with You!’ He totally ignored what the Lord said or maybe he just didn’t believe Him. Either way, it was pride.

Why pride? Luke 22:24 says, “Now there was also a dispute among them, as to which of them should be considered the greatest." (Luke 22:24) In that type of conversation, you already know somebody was bragging about how many devils they’d cast out and how many folk had been healed in their meetings. So Peter was already ‘crunk’ - as the youth would say - about his exploits. The Lord was trying to tell Peter that he was about to come under attack; but instead of saying, “Yes sir. Lord, what should I do?” He – out of pride – thought he was prepared and instead had his attention on what Jesus was about to do.

Right now some of you are about to come under attack; but where’s your attention? Are you pridefully paying more attention to Beyonce’s Grammy® performance than you are to the fact that you haven’t spent more than thirty minutes in the Word since Sunday? Today, my faithful readers, humble yourself and make a decision to pay more attention to what the Lord is trying to prepare you for. There’s something headed your way – good or bad – but are you ready?

Pray this with me: Heavenly Father, please forgive me. You were trying to warn me about that and I didn’t listen. I wasn’t paying attention. Lord, I repent and ask that You would give me another opportunity to do what You were leading me to. Prepare me Lord for what’s ahead. Your Word says that the Spirit of truth will guide me into all truth and that He will show me things to come. Show me the truth today about that situation and I purpose to do all that You reveal. In Jesus’ name.

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