Ready

Today, I want to talk to you about the word ready. What it means to be ready to serve God, to make others ready to serve Him, and how to pursue those who don’t know Him yet. Genesis 14:14-16 will give a good example of readiness, what it looks like in action and its results.

BE READY TO SERVE GOD: To be ready means to be firm, stable and established in the things of God. It means to be secure in God and to be morally steadfast. Readiness is not past tense. It is a present and future tense word. Ready is being prepared and getting prepared at the same time. What do I mean by that? Today, right now, in the present, I am ready for whatever the Lord allows to happen to me. He, more than me or anyone else, knows my state of readiness for His plans for me. So, if He allows a calamity today, then that means that I am ready for the calamity of today. And not only that, but I can rest knowing that I have the victory on the other side of that situation. The Lord knows how firm, stable, and established we are. He doesn’t put anything more on us than we can handle, so that means, if He allows it today, then we can overcome it. We are ready enough for the trials of today. However, I am nowhere near firm, stable, or established enough in the things of God that I need to be in order to handle the situations of the future. That is what I mean when I say that to be ready is present and future tense. I am ready today for the things of today AND I am also getting ready today for the things of tomorrow. I am becoming more firm, stable and established in the things of God. Becoming more secure in Him and more morally steadfast. Let me be clear that I am talking about situations the Lord allows in our life. Not situations that come about because of our sin or disobedience, pride or personal ambition. I’m talking about situations like what happened with Job. He was doing all that he was supposed to be doing, and it was the Lord, not sin and disobedience, that threw a rock in the calm waters of his life.

MAKE READY TO SERVE GOD: MAKING SOMEONE READY IS ALSO ABOUT US BECAUSE IT IS OUR WALK THAT MOTIVATES THEM TO CHANGE. To make ready is to make the necessary preparations in your own life to serve God so that others can see how and then follow. They look at our life at what needs to be done to reach or pursue a certain goal and to then prepare to do it because they have seen us do it. The word is drawn from the Asian custom of sending a team before kings on a journey in order to get the roads ready. To make ready means to prepare the minds of men to give the Messiah a fit reception.

Genesis 14:14-16 KJV “And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive , he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen , and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.”

HISTORY: Four kings rose up to go to war against Sodom and Gomorrah and some other lesser known nations. Lot, who was Abrams (Abrams) nephew lived in Sodom and when Sodom was captured, he and his household along with everything he owned was taken captive. Of the four kings that went to war against Sodom and the others, one of them was called Tidal, King of Nations. The other three kings were leaders of one nation each, but Tidal, whose name means “great son” was the king of many nations. Imagine a swarm of locusts and that should give you the picture of how many nations he had under his control.

Abram was ready. The men born and trained in his house were ready. Who were these men? They were his trained servants. They were not related to him. They were not his sons. They were a part of his household. This is key for us today. They were people he was responsible for. Who are you responsible for spiritually? Who has the Lord placed in your sphere of influence? Those are the people you need to train; the people you need to make ready. That is your household.

Abram = "exalted father" (comes from the word meaning "the exalted One is my father")

Abraham = "father of a multitude" or "chief of multitude"

Remember, when this assignment came to him, he was Abram. He was not the Father of a Multitude, he simply knew that His Father was the exalted One. That is a message to us. We are ready when we know that our Father is God. Rich kids have this mentality down. They know that their daddy is rich and powerful and able to get them anything they want and able to get them out of any situation. They know that they are entitled to all the benefits that their father’s

money and power can secure for them. Abram must have had that same entitlement mentality as well. He knew the greatness of his Father and so he was ready for anything. Let's say my name is Susie. I don’t have to be Susieham in order to do great things. By doing them as Susie, by walking in readiness today, I am preparing for the time when the Lord changes my name and has me prepared for the greater work of tomorrow.

IT’S IMPORTANT NOT TO LET PRIDE DESTROY READINESS: Once we train our household, our dependence shouldn’t be on the training or on them, but on God. Our thinking should never be, “I have this person on my side, so I’m safe.” Or, “with all this skill on my side, there is no way I can lose.” We cannot forget that we are trained so that we can bring glory to God. We can have the skill of the best fighters in the world, but if we forget that God is our help, our skill, all of our training means nothing and everyone on our side means NOTHING. Even if we win a particular battle in our own strength, we lose the war without God.

How do we know that Abram didn’t go out in his own strength or with confidence in his servants to get the victory? The clue is in the number of men he brought with him. Remember, he went up against four kings, one of them was King Tidal who had many nations under him. 319 men, no matter how well trained, were nothing against those numbers. Yet, they prevailed. How? Abram had 318 trained servants. I was researching the number 318 and found out that the name Eliezer has a numerological value of 318. Eliezer was one of Abram’s servants. Eliezer means “God is help”. Abram and his servants went out with God’s help and they came back with the victory because of God’s help. The fact that Eliezer is also the Hebrew name for Lazarus lets us know that nothing is impossible with God. Lazarus was dead. His body was starting to stink. And Jesus brought him back. Nothing is impossible with God. Look at the odds against Abram and his servants. They went up against 3 kings and their 3 kingdoms as well as King Tidal and his many kingdoms and they came out the conquerors.

Because of this belief in the God of the impossible and the God who is our help, Abram and his 318 servants were able to prevail over those numbers and bring back everything that was lost. I think it is important to note, that Abram and his trained servants not only brought back Lot and his goods and his people, but ALL the goods of Sodom, Gomorrah and the 3 other nations they were joined

with. Abram had no alliance with these nations, but he brought their people and goods back anyway and would not accept payment for doing it.

Genesis 14 says that Abram “divided himself against them, he and his servants.” This means that he separated his forces. They split into small groups and attacked. I love that Abram not only trained his household to fight. But there were some that he also trained to lead. He had to humble himself and realize that he couldn’t do it alone. He had to trust that there were others with leadership ability. I love that he had this humility and maturity as Abram. He probably couldn’t have become Abraham without it.

ABRAM WENT OUT AT NIGHT: 1 John 1:5 - "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." There is no reason to wait for a “good time” to pursue the enemy. Don’t wait until it’s light or until it seems easier or safer. God is our help. We are on His side. We are on the side of Light itself and in Him is NO DARKNESS AT ALL! We can see in the dark because He is light and so we are light. Others may need the light of day to function. We don’t.

1 John 2:10 - "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him." Also, Abram had love on his side. He loved Lot. He did not want his nephew lost and enslaved or even killed. If we love those who we are pursuing, then we abide in the light and will not stumble in our pursuit to reach and rescue them.

HOBAH: Verse 15 says that Abram and his men pursued the enemy to a place called Hobah which is on the left hand of Damascus. The word Hobah means “hiding place”. When we are on the side of God, there is no place that the enemy can hide that we cannot find them. There is an old song that says, “I went into the enemies camp and I took back what he stole from me!” That’s what Abram did. Genesis 14:14-16 are action verses. They compel us to go out and fight and win. Abram didn’t just sit home and wait for his people to be restored to him. He went and got them.

It’s important to note that Lot didn’t really deserve to be rescued. He took the best grazing land and left Abram with 2nd best AND Lot made a dumb decision. He pitched his tents in Sodom after living with the Godly, although not perfect, example of Abram. He chose to live in a corrupt place. Abram went after him anyway.

What would happen if we rose up as force of Eliezers who know that God is their help? A force of Lazarus’ who have been raised from the dead by their Bridegroom King. There is no Hobah on this earth that would stay hidden from us if we got training, trained each other and others, and went out as one body with one purpose from every angle. Not only would we get back what we are pursuing, but others would be rescued in the process. They are hidden from us, but God sees everything! He is waiting on a people to rise up. We must be ready, we must train our household to be ready, and we must go after our brothers and sisters who are not ready.

To recap, we have learned that we are ready to fight the battles of today. We have learned that with God’s help, we will have the victory no matter the odds. We have learned that we can see in the dark so what may be a hindrance to others is not a hindrance to us. We have learned that we must train up our household, not only to fight but to lead. We have learned that even though people may not deserve rescue, we didn’t, we must still pursue them. Now, we are going to learn how. How do we pursue our loved ones? How do we fight for them? Abram and his 318 fought a physical battle for Lot. Do we go get guns and swords and crossbows and fight? That would probably be easier than what is required of us. 2 Cor 10:3-4 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)” The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God. So, what are the weapons of our warfare? What do we fight with?

A weapon is a tool of preparation. The Greek word for weapons in 2 Corinthians is the same word used in Romans 6:13 for instruments. “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” What are our weapons? If the verse says, “neither yield your members as weapons of unrighteousness” then our weapons must be our members. Members are body parts.

This sounds weird unless we look at the Body of Christ as a whole. The Lord is saying to the Body of Christ, don’t yield your members, your different body parts as weapons of unrighteousness for sin, but yield your body parts as weapons of righteousness for God. What part of the Body are you? Yield that as a weapon to God. If you are the eye, then see, prophecy. If you are the nose, then smell, discern. If you are the mouth, then teach, preach, exhort. Yield your body part, your gift and calling, as an instrument, a weapon for God.

That is what we fight with. We fight with our gift. By yielding ourselves that gift or calling to God. The word yield in Romans 6 means to place beside or near, to place at ones disposal, to bring near into fellowship or intimacy. So, we are called to fight by placing ourselves near to God (that sounds like prayer, fasting and studying the Word to me). We are to fight by placing our callings and gifts at His disposal, growing in fellowship and intimacy with Him.

Our weapon is our calling and we fight by placing that calling at God’s disposal to use as He sees fit, where He sees fit, how He sees fit. If we simply do what we are called to do; walk in our gifts and callings, which are our weapons, then by default, we are fighting the enemy and pursuing the lost. We will rescue those we are meant to rescue. Walking in our gifts and calling is the equivalent of fighting and pursuing and equivalent to what Abram did with his 318.

Paul, by putting his calling as an apostle and teacher at the disposal of God, by walking in his calling, by wielding those weapons of apostleship and teaching, is still reaching , training and rescuing millions TODAY!

John the Baptist walked in his calling. He preached and exhorted and chastised and 40000 people per month came into the wilderness to hear him and to get their hearts ready to receive the Messiah.

If you are called to teach, then do it. Teaching involves knowing God’s Word, so you have to study and read His Word every day. The Lord says that your gift will make room for you, so He will put you in situations where your gift needs to be used. You think you are just teaching, but in the Spiritual realm, you are Spiderman or Zena Warrior Princess. In the natural, you are teaching that God is love, but in the Spirit, you are chasing and pursuing the enemy into Hobah and cutting away the strings they have attached to the ones you are pursuing.

GET READY!

TRAIN OTHERS TO GET READY!

LEARN HOW TO USE YOUR WEAPONS! PUT THEM AT GOD’S DISPOSAL!

USE THEM!

PURSUE THE LOST ONES! GET THEM BACK!