Stay Ready—You Don’t Know the Hour | Matthew 24:42 Devotional + Workout

Devotional

“Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”

Matthew 24 is almost entirely red-letter gospel, and all of it is equally important, but I would like to touch on No One Knows That Day and Hour (Matthew 24:36-51).

This section can be taken quite literally as Jesus speaks on the end times, when Heaven and earth will pass away. He says that the end times will be comparable to the flood where people were living happily, yet sinfully, before being swept away.

Jesus does not say this so that we live our lives fearfully. Rather, He tells us this so that we can remain hopeful. That if we remain faithful to the Lord, we can rest assured that when the time comes, we will be saved. We will be like the man in the field or the woman at the mill that were taken, not left.

My second favorite verse from this section immediately follows our title verse from today:

“But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.”

Matthew 24:43 ESV

When we read this, I imagine we think this is common sense. Who wouldn’t stay awake, prepared, if they knew they would be robbed of their possessions. That is the whole point that Jesus is making! We should always be prepared, choosing to do what is right whether it is easy or hard.

After this, He provides an example of a servant who is prepared and one who is not. The prepared servant remained faithful to his master and diligently prepared food at the appropriate time. As a result, he was entrusted with overseeing all of the master’s possessions and lived a prosperous life.

As for the wicked servant, he did not prepare the food timely, as instructed. His master was delayed, so he lived wildly. He beat his fellow servants and drank with the drunkards. This servant was cut to pieces by his master.

While this example may seem extreme, it is presented to illustrate the gravity of being prepared.

What is your motivation for being fit/strong?

Is it to serve as a role model for your children? Is it for injury prevention as you age? Or is it simply to become stronger and feel better overall?

No matter the reason, we cannot be ready for these moments overnight. It takes years of discipline to become prepared for them. We do not know the day that we will fall and break a bone. We do not know the day we will be blessed with children. I would argue that nearly all life events will happen at a day in which we are not prepared.

This is why we must live by God’s word and follow the model of the faithful servant, so we can be ready for all of life’s precious moments.

Workout

Below is the workout for the day.

Three things to consider when completing this workout:

1. If you can, do weighted pull ups for the 4 sets of 3. This will allow you to do the max rep set at body weight. An example of this structure would be 4 sets using a 25lb plate, then 10+ reps at body weight for the last set.

2. On the pull downs, the first set should be done to failure with a short 15-30 second break, followed by another set to failure at the same weight (This is not a drop set). For the weight, use one that you can get anywhere between 15 to 20 reps for the first set.

3. I encourage the use of straps on all pull movements except curls. In lat exercises, your lats are significantly stronger than your grip, so your grip will give out first. Biceps are not nearly as strong as your lats, so you have the ability to train your grip/forearms during bicep work, making curls minor compound lifts.

Pull-Up:

4 sets of 3 reps

1 set of max reps

Superset

Cable Hammer-Grip Seated Row

4 sets of 8 reps

Dumbbell Incline Curl

4 sets of 8 reps

Barbell Upright Row

4 sets of 12 reps

Cable Reverse-Grip Pull Down

2 sets of max reps

Barbell Reverse-Grip Curl

4 sets of 12 reps