Waking Up
Sleep. Oh how we love and cherish our sleep. It’s a time to relax and get all cozy under the blankets. Resting and relaxing is one of the most pleasurable activities! Consciousness of the world around us fades away into our imaginations.
But alas… When the morning comes then we must get up and get moving! This comes more naturally to some than to others. Depending on what we have going on that day, maybe there is no real pressure to get going. But all the same, we are awake. The realities of life are present with us, and we must decide on how to continue our walk in life for this one day we have been blessed with.
I must say that it is awfully scary sometimes as to how we can be awake without actually being “awake.” It is far too easy to view the world around us in a deadened and sleep-like manner. We see but are not truly seeing because many things blind us to the way things really are!
When God calls us to “Awake, O Sleeper, and arise from the dead,” He is calling us to a higher level of awareness and urgency in our walk. Ideal conditions for sleep include dark and quiet places where we are uninterrupted. (Just to clarify, resting and sleeping are good, healthy, and necessary parts of life! Rest is a huge part of our walk with the Lord in a spiritual manner. When referring to sleep in this article, I am referring to death and the dullness/unawareness that come with it in our waking life, NOT the positive aspects of rest!) This is similar to the place where satan wants us to be. In the devil’s ideal place we are tuned out of our surroundings, unaware of everything going on outside of ourselves. He wants us in dark places where there is no light. Just as a dead person cannot move and be of use on earth, so the devil wants us to be immobile and stagnant in our walk with the Lord! So he will do whatever it takes, including tuning us out of our senses, to hinder us from being as powerful in our walk as we could be!
I believe it is time to wake up, to come to our senses, and to begin moving those creaky joints in an effort for the Lord. What we need is a dousing of oil from the Holy Spirit to begin moving again! We must turn to the Holy Spirit and utterly submit every part of ourselves. Feed on the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to penetrate your heart with Truth—thus bringing light to all your ways. By the Truth we receive the Light. But when anything is exposed and reproved by the light, it is made visible and clear; and where everything is visible and clear there is light. Ephesians 5:13, AMP By the Light we are convicted, we see our sin. By seeing our sin we are enabled to repent. After repentance comes the healing, the wholeness, the breaking of the yoke.
Throughout the process of our internal revealing process, the Lord begins to shine light to our eyes, and all of our senses for that matter, to the hurting needs of the world surrounding us. Our heart awakens to His heart for others. We come to really see and understand the emptiness of a world that lives without Jesus Christ as their Savior. We begin to perceive it everywhere, just as Jesus did as he walked on this earth. Hearts beat in sync with the heart of God. We are moved to action. Complacency and idleness are shattered. We must move. We must do something for this aching world. We must go forward in the Light of Christ, shining, breathing, moving for His glory… because His heart so aches for us to do so.
In Christ’s strength we will move. In Him we will become involved with others. Strongholds and barriers preventing us from reaching out and moving will be far-removed. Fear and awkwardness will diminish as we spend more time enjoying Him. We will pray more. Pray for more people to be moved, to be awakened to their senses, out of the depths of their sleep.
And we, as Christ’s body, will come forth just as Lazarus did, in the full glory and power of the Holy Spirit, adorned in His light. Just as Jesus shouted with a loud voice for Lazarus to come out of his tomb, so are we as the body of Christ being called to Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead! In order that Christ’s light should shine upon us!
