Awaken From Spiritual Slumber Archives

February 20, 2021February 19, 2021

Don’t Blindly Follow

¹²As she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk ¹⁴and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.” ¹⁵“Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. ¹⁶Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.” ~ 1 Samuel 1:12-16

Eli was the High Priest at the time that Hannah was earnestly praying for a child in the Temple. Eli, though the High Priest, had no discernment. He took yearning and seeking after God for drunkenness. He had spiritually fallen asleep. Is this how the Church is today? Are our leaders spiritually awake?

In our society today, we’ve become more about feelings than about Truth. Why? Is it that our spiritual leaders have fallen asleep? Jesus said, that if the blind lead the blind both will fall into the pit. Just like in the days of Eli, the spiritually blind are leading the spiritually blind straight into the pit. When we stop reading the Bible for ourselves to see if what we are being taught is true, we are blindly following. And if we are blindly following, then how can we know whether our leaders are leading us to life or to death?

Spend time with the LORD. Seek out His wisdom and His discernment through His Holy Spirit. Jesus didn’t die on the cross to take away our sin and then raise again only to abandon us here alone. He went up to Heaven so that we could have the Holy Spirit with us and within us forever. He is our guide so that we never fall into a Spiritual blindness or Spiritual sleep as Eli did.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Blindly Follow.

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Do You Know Jesus?

“²⁴but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” ~ Jeremiah 9:24

I recall the time when I was in the army, and one of my fellow soldiers invited me to go to church with him. The car was packed with his church friends as they squeezed over to let us in. We hadn’t even cleared the parking lot when I felt attacked by these Bible-thumpers with the invasive questions. “Do you know Jesus?” “Do you know Jesus?”

Of course, I did. Rude. I went to Sunday School every Sunday morning as a child. I even received little paper awards for not missing a Sunday all month. I took part in the Christmas programs. I even went to an all-day meeting once; on my own accord, I might add. Of course, I know Jesus.

Well, if truth be told, I really didn’t know Him. I only knew about Him. And He didn’t know me. For the Scripture says that He will say to those on His left, depart from me, I never knew you. Knowing Jesus as your personal Savior is a whole lot different than knowing about Him. You may know who the President of the United States is, but you don’t know him in the sense of having a relationship with him. That’s how many of us are. We know of Jesus. We grew up in church. Sang in the choir, but we’re currently spiritually asleep, lacking a personal, intimate relationship with God. Leaving us with an impression of who we think He might be, who we want Him to be, or who the world tells us He is.

If you’re planning to spend eternity with someone, I suggest you get to know them, just as you would get to know your future spouse. Know their likes and dislikes. What makes them happy and what angers them. What they like to talk about and their favorite things. God is no different. He desires to be known by His people, and He will reveal Himself to those who diligently seek Him. But how do you seek? Read/study your Bible. Pray continually. Spend time in worship. Don’t just have an outward appearance of a relationship with God, only to have no connection to Him on the inside. Go for something more than an outward appearance. Go for a true relationship with Jesus.

Be blessed and stay blessed.

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Don’t Be Religious

“¹ Behold, the Lord‘s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; ²but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.” ~ Isaiah 59:1-2

A lot of the time, we pray to God, but there’s no answer. We go to church religiously, but there’s no Spiritual renewal. And when trouble comes, and we can’t hold on, we blame God. Praying to God doesn’t make you saved; even Satan talks to God. Going to church doesn’t make you saved; even demons go to church. When we get saved but don’t hold to the commands of Jesus, we fall asleep Spiritually.

God didn’t turn away from us. His hand didn’t shorten. His ear didn’t go deaf. But our sin that we refused to give up separated us from God. When we pray with hearts filled with sin, it’s like talking to someone but covering your face with a pillow; they can’t hear you or understand you. We separate ourselves from God but keep up a religious front as if that will justify the sins we’ve grown accustomed to and can’t live without.

Going to church doesn’t save you, praying doesn’t save you either, but combining those things with righteousness and living your life as Christ lived His will. Look at your life; is it a religious front? Or is it Spirit-filled?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Be Religious.

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Be Doers of The Word

“²²But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” ~ James 1:22

Sometimes we get caught up in ourselves. We treat the Bible as a book we read but don’t really follow. We know the Scriptures, but we don’t put them into practice. We know the commands of Jesus, yet we shy away from them. We set up our own rules, justifying them with Scriptures taken out of context. We go to church every Sunday, but we don’t really take in the message. We want things sugarcoated and easy to swallow, but that’s just not Christianity.

Christianity is an action-faith. You can’t just say you’re a Christian and live however you want, cherry-picking your way through the Bible. Being a Christian takes restraint from certain things, faith, love, and imitating Jesus. But many of us have fallen asleep, and we don’t even know it. We have an appearance of Godliness, but it doesn’t go any deeper than that. Be doers of the Word, not only hearers. Don’t be deceived, allowing yourself to drift off into Spiritual Slumber. Awaken. Rid yourself of all of life’s sleeping pills.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Doers of The Word.

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Pay Attention To Blockades

“When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.” ~ Genesis 19:16^NLT

Sometimes God gives us a little push so that we may be saved from ourselves. Lot chose the land of Sodom, even though it had a bad reputation. He chose men for his daughters in the land of Sodom, even though the men of Sodom were wicked. Lot looked at what he could gain, not what his soul could lose. Sometimes we look at everything we could have instead of looking at everything we could lose.

How many sought after the glamorous life of Hollywood started out as Christians and now are on drugs, completely far away from God, living in sexual immorality, and have become so blinded that they can’t even see that. Or how many sought after a glamorous job but became filled with lust for more and more power. More and more money. So much so that they spiritually corrupted themselves.

Sometimes God places blockades in our path because that’s not the path for us. Because He knows we’re meant for so much more. Because He knows what we’ll lose. It’s his way of grabbing us by the hand and rushing us to safety. But we don’t always take His hand and go, sometimes we jerk away, and we stay, as Lot’s sons-in-law did. And in the end, we are Spiritually destroyed. Awaken and look around. Is this what God has in store for you? Is this good for your Spirit? Don’t be deceived by beauty because Sodom was beautiful and seemed to flourish on the outside, but on the inside, it was wicked and spiritually dead.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Pay Attention To The Blockades.

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Seek With Your Whole Heart

“⁸She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. ⁹Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. ¹⁰Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.” ~ Jeremiah 3:8-10

The LORD is speaking of the nations of Israel and Judah. He separated Himself from Israel after she worshiped other gods, placing up high-places for them and worshiping there. Once Judah saw what happened to Israel, the LORD expected Judah to learn from Israel’s mistakes, but they didn’t. Judah sinned, in the same way Israel did. When Israel was separated from the LORD, He expected them to repent, but they didn’t. They continued in their idolatry.

Sometimes we are like Israel. We are drawn away by other gods; while God is waiting for us to return, we continue in our sins and ignore the lack of His voice. The lack of His presence. The lack of Him. Yet the longer we stay in idolatry, the less we care. The more we fall spiritually asleep. We care less and less what is right and what is wrong, just what feels good, what feels right. What satisfies our desires until we are no longer asleep but spiritually dead.

And sometimes, we are like Judah. We see others go down a dangerous road. We see the repercussions. The hardships. The emptiness. Sometimes, we even witness their own death, yet we still follow in their footsteps. We still seek after the same things. We still walk away from God, who is life and gives life, to false gods, who are death and bring death. Somehow we don’t seem to learn from the mistakes of those before us because we believe we’ll be the one to get away with it. We don’t even realize that with every step we take away from God, we take towards our spiritual death.

Don’t be like Israel or Judah. Don’t seek pleasure in unrighteous acts or follow in weak footsteps. Look to God for everything, and He will provide it. He will answer you when you call. You will find Him when you seek Him with your whole heart. Don’t do as Judah did when they sought the LORD. They simply looked for a way to escape their judgment, not for a relationship. Not for repentance. But with a false mask of humility and remorse so that they could escape judgment without having to change.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek With Your Whole Heart.

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Seek Him

“⁶Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; ⁷let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” ~ Isaiah 55:6-7

We often believe that God will forever show us grace. No matter what we do. No matter what we say, God will always be there, but is that true? Will God always be there? Isaiah tells us to seek the LORD while He may be found. We expect God to always be there, just waiting for us to give Him a little of our attention. But God says to seek Him while He can be found. Today is the day of salvation; tomorrow is promised to no man. Seek the LORD before it’s too late. Before time runs out and you can no longer find Him. Wake from your Spiritual Slumber.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek Him.

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Be Like Flowing Water

“Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.” ~ Proverbs 25:26

Often times, we as Christians will give in to the pressures of the world and allow sin to be prominent in our nation. When we do that, we become like a muddy spring or a polluted fountain. In other words, we are Spiritually Asleep. We stop working the way the Holy Spirit recreated us to. When we fall spiritually asleep our soul becomes at risk for spiritual death.

We begin to make excuses for sin because we don’t want to offend anyone or “force our faith on others.” We want to be liked by all, but Jesus told us something fundamental, “if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” We are not of the world, so why do we destroy our righteousness to become accepted by the world? Is it really worth it to become like stagnant water before the LORD?

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Like Running Water.

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Be A Berean

“¹¹Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” ~ Acts 17:11

As a Church, we’ve lost our desire to study the Bible. We’ve become content with not knowing Scripture. It’s become okay not to know if something is in the Bible or not. If something is a sin or not. How to get saved? Can you really lose your Salvation? Do you need to be baptized?

We’ve gotten rid of the need to actually know God and His Word. We’re satisfied just knowing that God is God, and that’s it. We don’t search for anything else. We can no longer defend our own beliefs. We don’t check to see if what the Preacher is preaching is accurate. We’re too busy for that, but we’ll find time to read about our favorite celebrities. Watch our favorite movies and T.V. shows. Hang out with our friends.

By no means are any of these things wrong by themselves, but when it comes to placing them above God and the things of God, that’s when it becomes an idol. That’s when it becomes a sin. That’s why the author of the book of Acts was bigging up the Bereans. They were hungry for the Word of God. They desired to know the truth. They were awake and growing, but we’ve fallen asleep. No one grows during a Spiritual Sleep; instead, they begin to die. Spiritual Slumber leads to Spiritual Death. And the worst part is, you won’t even know you’re dying. You won’t be able to stop it unless you wake up. Unless you build a true relationship with Jesus. The only way to do that is to read and study your Bible, worship, pray, go to Church, and follow in His footsteps.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be A Berean.

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Take Your Head Out Of The Sand

“²For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. ³While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. ⁴But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

⁵For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. ⁶So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. ⁷For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. ⁸But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:2-8

No matter where you go in the world our biggest enemy is apathy. We no longer care what the Bible says, whether it’s the creation of the world, the end times, or even just what’s right and what’s wrong. We don’t know and we don’t care. No one wants to talk about it. No one wants to hear about it. All we want to do is put our head in the sand as if that will protect us from whatever is here or whatever is coming. We’d rather watch mindless television than read our Bible. We’d rather live in a bubble than actually learn what’s going on with the world. Why? Why don’t we want to face what’s right in front of us?

We’ve gotten to a point where we no longer want to even define sin because that could be offensive to those who live in sin. We have become apathetic to the things of God, but to the world, we give our full attention and time. Whether we like it or not, sin is crouching at our door, and it desires to overcome us and devour us, and if we’re not careful, it will do just that. If we don’t pay attention to what’s going on in the world, we will be devoured. If we don’t pay attention to how the Bible tells us to live, we will be devoured. We have to care whether the Bible says it’s right or wrong, and we have to care what the Bible says will happen in the future. Because with apathy, we have no chance of spiritual survival.

Keeping your head in the sand won’t keep you safe, it won’t protect you, and it won’t make it okay. We have to make a choice to stand firm. Don’t be deceived by the world, but look to God and He will open your eyes. He will remove all the sand from your eyes that you have accumulated over the years. He will make you aware, and when He does, He will give you His peace, so that it will not overcome you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Take Your Head Out Of The Sand.

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