Are you living on Ready?
“John 3:3 (KJV), “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Three people woke up that morning thinking it was an ordinary day. They didn’t realize that this would be their last chance to surrender their lives to Christ. They didn’t know that God had predestined July 17, 2006, to be their last day on earth.

But they also didn’t know that God had arranged for each of them to encounter one of His ambassadors for Christ, to give them the word of God and to minister to them. If they were willing to surrender, today could be their day of salvation.

Sandra Johnson was the ambassador of Christ whom God chose for a special assignment that day. He had placed her in a position where she had the opportunity to minister about Him to three souls and lead them to Christ before their deaths. On that day He placed a special anointing on her life that would come forth immediately when she opened her mouth to minister about Jesus Christ to the unsaved. Anyone she spoke the gospel to on that day would be receptive and willing to receive Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior.

Sandra had been a member of her church for more than ten years. She loved God. She proudly served on the usher board and was the head of the Pastor’s Aid committee. She had always been the kind of woman people could count on to fill in at church whenever there was a need. But on this day, God Himself had chosen her for an assignment, though she was not informed of the decision.

Sandra started out her day by leaving her house and heading to the subway on her way to work. She sat on the train next to a man. He smiled when she greeted him with a “Good morning.”

For a couple of minutes, the man talked about the weather. Then he spoke proudly of his family. “I’ve been married to a lovely woman for twenty-five years and we have two children in college. My wife wanted me to skip work today so I could attend a Christian conference with her.”

Sandra replied with a smile. “Really?”
“Yes, but I preferred to go to work. My wife is a persistent woman. She has invited me to four conferences and she invites me to church every week, but I have yet to go to either.” The man snickered. “She took the Amtrak out to Boston for the conference yesterday.”
“How nice for her,” Sandra said, again giving the gentleman a nice smile.

“Good for her but unfortunate for me. I agreed to pick her up tonight. I told her I’d drive out there and we could dine at this restaurant she’s been wanting to go to.”

“That’s only a couple hours’ drive,” Sandra replied.
“Yeah, and it would probably seem short if I hadn’t been up practically all night last night working to make up for leaving work early today.” The gentleman laughed.

When Sandra’s stop came, she bid the man good-bye. After getting off the train, she stood at the bus stop, waiting to begin the last leg of her one-hour-and-ten-minute commute to work. She noticed a young woman in her twenties sitting on the bench, crying silently. Sandra reached in her purse and handed the young woman a tissue. The woman accepted the tissue, barely looking up at her.

Sandra sat beside the young woman and gave her a compassionate smile. Eventually, the stranger opened up about her life. She was a single parent of two young children and had just lost her job. She had taken off several days from work due to various common sicknesses with her

children.
When the bus arrived, Sandra and the young woman boarded. Sandra took a seat near the back, never taking her eyes off the young woman. She sat there thinking about her own relatively worry-free life.

When Sandra finally arrived at work, she saw Jose, the janitor. “Good morning, Jose,” Sandra greeted him.

“Buenos dias, señorita,” Jose replied, tipping his cap at Sandra.

Sandra let out a chuckle and took a seat at her desk. She smiled at Jose, remembering their forty-five-minute talk the previous Friday. He had spoken of retiring in a year and moving back to Puerto Rico. Jose had been the janitor on their floor for more than eight years. He’d told Sandra many times that he thought she was a very nice lady and that he admired her greatly. He often came to her for advice.

At the end of the long day, Sandra cleared up her desk and went home. After a hurried dinner, she headed out the door for church, not wanting to be late for her ushers meeting. She was completely unaware of the impact she could have made that day on the lives of three people if only she had ministered to the folks she’d come into contact with.

The man Sandra met on the train that morning fell asleep at the wheel fifteen minutes from his destination. He died instantly when his car ran into a pole.

The young woman at the bus stop committed suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jose the janitor was robbed and killed on his way home from work.

All three died in darkness, not knowing God.

My Christian friend, what is your divine assignment for today? How many people do you encounter every day who are not saved? Might you be their final chance?

Reverend G. E. Patterson once preached a sermon titled “Living on Ready.” He said we should always be prepared to minister the gospel, no matter where we are or how we feel. I agree with him. You never know when you will be the one who can be used to finally get through to someone’s husband, someone’s teenage daughter, or someone’s mother about surrendering their lives to God.

Being pleasant with strangers and acquaintances is good. But we must be ready to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ at all times. Are you living on ready?

How do we know the truth? We go to the Word of God. The Bible says in
John 3:3 (KJV), “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be b0orn again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

None of us knows when our final day on earth will be. If your final day were today, would your soul be accepted into the kingdom of heaven?
If you are already a child of God (born again), is someone’s eternity dependent upon you ministering to them today? And if you are not a child of God, the scripture John 3:3 above speaks for itself.