Matthew 10:32-34 (NLT)
“Everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.
“Don’t imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth! I came not to bring peace, but a sword.
My greatest desire is to be praising GOD the moment my time here on earth is complete.
Funny the things you remember. Years ago, I listened to this band called Korn. One of their songs builds and builds instrumentally until Jonathan Davis (the singer) screams, “Are you readyyyyyyyy?” What follows is a musical barrage and, if you’re present at their live show, thousands of people thrashing up and down, side to side in a flood of angst-ridden humanity. (Check out a YouTube clip. The one from Woodstock 99 is moving. In more ways than one).
After reading the subtitle “Are You Ready” in Crazy Love, I thought about these images. But my perceptions have changed drastically since those depressive, anger-driven days. Now I can still hear the clarion call of “Are You Ready” in my head, but I think not of a lost crowd of passive people releasing their pent-up aggressions in an emotional orgy. But of a countless crowd bursting into the unrestrained praise of GOD. I envision what it will be like to leave this fleeting world and the human condition behind and lift my voice with innumerable others in a concerted chorus of praise to the Creator and Redeemer. I see joy in its purest form flowing out of hearts who spent lives in faith believing and now becoming one in the greatest “ending” to any romance story ever told. I witness the absence of pain and confusion, and the emergence of an eternity in which light and love and story emits. Forever.
Now that’s a concert I not only desire to attend but want to participate in. So now allow me to say (not shout), “Are You Ready?”
Author’s Note: for more on this topic, read pages 46-47 of Crazy Love by Francis Chan and Danae Yankoski
