What should believers “be ready” for?

The Bible calls us to be ready for our Lord’s return for the Church (commonly called the Rapture):

Luke 12:36 “Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.
Luke 12:37 “Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.
Luke 12:38 “Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
Luke 12:39  “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
Luke 12:40 “You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

The test of readiness is whether the “slaves” (i.e., believers) are "on alert", which means serving the Master diligently. All believers are called to serve the Lord as He directs. That service includes guarding our hearts from wandering into sin and distraction. As Jesus commanded:

Luke 21:34 “Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap;

Christ’s return for the church leads to a moment of judgment for every believer, called the Judgment Seat of Christ:

2Cor. 5:9 Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
2Cor. 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

This judgment is a test of our works for the purpose of assigning reward. Believers must be prepared for this test. To learn more about the coming judgment for believers, please read the following articles on our website:

Explaining talents vs minas

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org