There’s a question I used to skip over quickly.
I would read it, nod, think yes, of course, and keep moving. Not because it wasn’t important. But because, somewhere deep inside, I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit with it long enough to answer it honestly.
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The question is this:
Are you ready for the return of Christ?
Not ready as in — do you believe it will happen. Not ready as in — can you quote the right verses about it. But ready as in: if He came back tonight, would the condition of your heart be what you’d want it to be?
That version of the question is harder. That version lands differently. That version doesn’t let you hide behind theology.
And I’ve been sitting with it all week.
WHAT JESUS ACTUALLY SAID
He Didn’t Give Us a Date. He Gave Us a Mirror.
When the disciples asked Jesus about the end — what the signs would be, how they’d know when it was near — He answered. But what He kept coming back to wasn’t a timeline. It was one word, repeated over and over across different moments in the same conversation.
Watch. Be ready. Stay awake.
Not: calculate. Not: predict. Not: decode the newspaper.
Watch. Be ready. Stay awake.
Matthew 24:44
“So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
I used to read that verse as a warning. A kind of divine reminder not to get too comfortable. And it is that — but it’s more than that too.
It’s also an invitation.
Because the people for whom His return is not a surprise are not the ones who guessed the date correctly. They’re the ones who have been living in readiness. Day after day. In the ordinary. In the quiet. In the moments no one was watching.
Paul says it in 1 Thessalonians 5 — there are people for whom that day will come like a thief, sudden and disorienting. But then he says: you are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are children of the light.
Children of the light. Not people with all the answers. People who are awake.
THE PARABLE THAT KEEPS FINDING ME
The Oil You Cannot Borrow
There’s a parable in Matthew 25 that I’ve heard many times. Ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom. Five wise, five foolish. All ten of them believed he was coming. All ten had lamps. All ten were waiting.
The only difference was oil.
You cannot build deep faith in an emergency. The oil is developed over thousands of ordinary days.
When the bridegroom finally arrived — at midnight, at the moment no one expected — the five foolish ones ran to buy oil. And the door was shut.
Not because God is cruel.
But because there are things that cannot be manufactured in the last moment that can only be built over time.
The oil is not information. It’s not having the right eschatological framework. The oil is the state of your inner life — the depth of your relationship with God, the condition of your faith, the degree to which your actual daily life reflects what you say you believe.
You cannot borrow someone else’s oil. You cannot buy it in a crisis. And you cannot accumulate it by accident.
It grows in the quiet. In the prayer no one sees. In the choice to remain faithful when nothing dramatic is happening and no one is paying attention.
THE REAL THREAT
It’s Not What You Think It Is
If someone asked me what the biggest threat to spiritual readiness is, I would have said something like: sin, rebellion, apostasy. The dramatic falling away.
But Jesus names something different in Luke 21. And it stopped me.
Luke 21:34
“Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.”
He says drunkenness — yes. But He also says the anxieties of life. The pressures of daily existence. The weight of trying to survive, to pay the bills, to manage the relationships, to keep everything from falling apart.
The greatest threat to readiness is not dramatic rebellion.
It is gradual drift.
A life so consumed by the immediate that the eternal never gets any attention. Not because you chose to walk away from God — but because a thousand small things pulled your gaze away from the horizon, one distraction at a time, until you realized you couldn’t quite remember the last time you prayed with genuine hunger. Or read Scripture and felt something. Or stopped long enough to think about what your life is actually building toward.
That drift is quiet. It doesn’t announce itself. It just happens — unless you’re watching.
SOMETHING PERSONAL
The Honest Answer
I want to be honest with you the way I’ve been trying to be honest with myself this week.
There are seasons where my faith feels alive and anchored. Where I read the Word and it lands. Where prayer feels like actual conversation. Where eternity feels close and real and worth orienting my entire life around.
And there are other seasons where I’m going through the motions. Where the anxieties of life have slowly taken up more real estate in my mind than God has. Where I believe everything I’ve always believed — but the belief is more like furniture than oxygen. It’s there, but I’m not using it.
And it’s in those second-season moments that the question lands hardest.
Are you ready?
Not am I saved — I know the answer to that. But: is the condition of my heart right now the condition I’d want it to be if today were the last day? Am I carrying any unresolved bitterness I’ve been avoiding? Any area of my life I’ve been keeping at arm’s length from God because I know what He’d say about it? Any relationship I haven’t repaired because repairing it feels costly?
Readiness, I’ve come to believe, is less about what you know and more about what you’ve surrendered.
Readiness looks like longing, not dread. The last prayer in the Bible is not desperation — it is desire. Come, Lord Jesus.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT FEAR
The Last Prayer in the Bible
I want to end here — not with urgency, but with something better.
The very last prayer recorded in Scripture, the final words of the entire Bible, is this:
Revelation 22:20
“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
Come. Lord. Jesus.
That is not the prayer of someone afraid of judgment. That is not the prayer of someone dreading what’s coming. That is the prayer of someone who wants this. Who has been watching and waiting and who greets the news — He is coming soon — not with fear, but with longing.
That is what readiness ultimately looks like. Not the absence of fear. Not perfect theological preparation. Not having figured everything out.
A heart that says: Come.
A life so oriented toward God that His return is not a disruption but a fulfillment.
And here is the grace in all of this — you don’t build that kind of readiness in one dramatic moment. You build it today. In this conversation. In the next choice you make about where to place your attention. In the prayer you say before you sleep tonight.
Readiness is built in exactly the same place your faith was built. In the ordinary. In the quiet. In the daily decision to remain close to God even when everything around you is pulling you somewhere else.
That’s the life of someone who is ready.
Not perfect. Not fearless. Just faithful.
THIS WEEK — THREE QUESTIONS TO SIT WITH
Take five minutes — not to analyze, but to be honest with yourself and with God:
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If Christ returned tonight, what would you wish you had done differently this week?
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Is there any area of your life you’ve been keeping at arm’s length from God? What would full surrender look like there?
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When you hear the words “He is coming soon,” is your first instinct dread — or desire? What does your answer reveal?
WATCH THIS WEEK’S VIDEO ON YOUTUBE
“Are You Ready for the Return of Christ?”
This week’s full message goes deeper into Matthew 24, the parable of the ten virgins, and what genuine spiritual readiness looks like — not in theory, but in the condition of your daily life.
▶ Watch now on Faith Is Fire → youtube.com/@faithisfire
BEFORE YOU GO
If this letter reached you today — if the question landed, if something in here touched something real — I want to ask you one thing.
Forward it to one person.
Not because I need the numbers. But because you probably have someone in your life who is in the exact season this was written for. Someone who is drifting and doesn’t know it. Someone who is afraid of this topic and needs to hear it framed around hope instead of fear. Someone whose faith has been through fire lately and needs to be reminded that the fire doesn’t destroy — it refines.
One forward. That’s it.
God will do the rest.
With you in the fire,
Norman
Faith Is Fire ·
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