Watch, therefore

Watch, therefore; 

“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.....” 

So God is calling believers to “watch” ...and what is watching? God first reminds me that being watchful or ready does not mean knowing, in one’s thinking, when God will “come” (maybe even “how” He will come). 

“.....Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.....” 

Then God indicates that “watching” or “being ready” has to do with how (we?) occupy or how we are present to the world we live in during this day of judgment...by feeding (meat) our household (the sheep, who might be but probably are not our own families) “in due season” (how and when we are called by God, in His time). This, it would seem, necessitates being prayerfully in God’s Word more than being fed by the ideas of other men and women, though I think God also uses others, believers and unbelievers alike to inform believers of the quality, methods and timing of the giving of Gods “meat”. 

“....Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing....”  

So, on the one hand, God calls believers to come out of identifying with the group-think of others and, at the same time, tells us that at the hour designated by Him alone, He will find the believer BEING PRESENT to his/her mission so designated in this day of judgment, remembering that Gods judgment and salvation, for believers, is one and the same; 

“He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”    Deuteronomy 32:4 

“Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;....” 

“Smiting his fellow servants and eating and drinking with the drunken” is what we, in our flesh do to get along in the world. It is spiritual language. It is the language of bartering, flattering, pretending to,  and with, each other that we are good, and we care and we can fix and we can save. It’s the language of the world and it lives in the flesh of even believers, constantly necessitating the believer to answer God’s call to seek Him in His Word for truth where He reminds that believer that their judgments of believers and unbelievers alike are acts of smiting their servants.  

This is a disturbing but lifesaving message. 

“....The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”    Matthew 24:42-51 

Someone who is spiritually watching is filtering all their experiences and relationships day by day, moment by moment, through the filter of God’s Word.