I remember during my teen years a bad habit of not wanting to wake up in the mornings. My mom would call me again and again and I would just lay there like a dead man. You could have set a bomb under our house and I would have just grunted. In all honesty, I could hear my mom calling the whole time, but my desire to sleep overcame my desire to get out of the bed. There were different things that caused me to want to sleep in; like staying out late the night before, not studying for a test I was taking the next day, etc. I would even fake sickness in order to stay in the bed to satisfy my desire to sleeeeeep. As I grew up and matured I understood there WAS a world functioning before 9am and that it was probably the best time of the day. I was able to get so much more done in the day and when I laid my head on my pillow at night it was a sleep of satisfaction, knowing that I had used my time wisely that day.
The sad thing is many Christians are content to sleep through just about everything God wants them to do. God’s plan goes on and they sleep, not realizing that there is work to be done and the time is short. I had a minister say to me once, “God doesn’t need us to get His work done.” That minister was also one of the laziest guys I had ever seen and he was using the thought of God’s awesome power to minimize our part in all of this. God can do all this without us, but He does it WITH us and THROUGH us. Sometimes we think we are doing God a favor by serving Him and it is our feeble effort to say, “thanks” to Him for His goodness. When Christ came into my life I couldn’t help but show my love for Him by serving Him. Every time I would see Him use me, it made me realize that I am part of this plan of His. He gives me significance that drives a yearning inside of me. A yearning to spend time with God and experience Him through His power and grace.
Sadly enough, as God calls each of us and His church to awaken out of this slumber we almost feel like He is cramping our style. We hear Him and we even acknowledge Him, but we never immerse our life in who He is and thus, we continue to sleep. Of course, sleeping or resting is good, and God even did that Himself. But the awakening I am talking about is different than resting from labor. It is a call for us to “wake up” and be active in our faith and belief that God is at work and we want to be at work with Him.
Can you hear the “alarm clock” as it goes off? Are you trying to stay asleep and are you happy staying asleep? If you are, then you need an awakening in your spiritual senses so you can hear the voice of God calling again. Maybe you have been asleep so long that now it’s going to take something loud and radical to wake you up. Why wait for that to happen. Awake today!!
God is calling and the world is out there needing wide awake believers serving in the power of the Holy Spirit. The ole, “I go to church on Sunday and that’s it” isn’t’ going to cut it anymore. If you truly know Jesus, then you will take the Word of God where it says in Ephesians 5:14, “Awake sleeper, And arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
It’s time to wake up and and let the light so shine in our lives so the world will see that Jesus is Alive!!!
The Pilgrimage continues…….
David Warren