Be Prepared

Be Prepared
Revelation 3:14-18

Prepare Your Hearts

• If we do not prepare our hearts with the truth, we will be overcome.
  
• John 16:33
  
• I John 5:3-5
  
• I John 4:4

Natural Thinking
~ does not prevent spiritual calamity ~

• Ephesians 6:12
  
• II Corinthians 10:4
  
  • We do not depend upon our own abilities for victory, but we depend upon the Holy Spirit and His means.
    
  • If we humble ourselves and listen, He will prepare us.
    
  • He seeks to prepare us even now.

Three Things To Acquire:

• Gold tried in the fire
  
• White garments
  
• Anointing for our eyes

Buy Gold Tried in the Fire

• This is a reference to truth that has been tested and proven reliable
  
• Proverbs 23:23
  
  • Only the truth will prepare us for crisis
    
  • And often it will prevent crisis
    
• The unexpected is usually the result of a failure to know the truth
  
  • If we prefer a lie because it offers temporary comfort, there will always be a lie available

Buy the truth, and do not sell it, also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
Proverbs 23:23

Purchase White Garments

• This is a reference to righteousness that has been purchased for us if we receive it from Him.
  
• A refusal to walk in His ways opens us to immorality that will leave us naked and exposed in shame.
  
• Holiness is a way of life:
  
  • Separated for God
    
  • Separated from sin
    
  • All caught in popular and permissive culture will suffer culture’s judgment

I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness.
Isaiah 61:10

Purchase Eye Salve

• The Holy Spirit has been given to us to open our eyes to the condition of our lives and the world around us.
  
• The Holy Spirit enables us to see as God sees, not as we assume things to be, or wish that they were.
  
• He removes the naiveté that allows us to become ensnared.
  
• Truth is defined as reality from God’s perspective.

If We Have Eyes To See

• This then will result in repentance and obedience
  
• Repentance is the gift of God that comes to those who humble themselves before Him.
  
• It allows us to see, become sorrowful with God’s own sorrow, and return to Him.
  
• It enables us to see reality before it destroys us.

And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
II Timothy 2:24-26