Tag: Awaken From Spiritual Slumber

¹² That is why the Lord says, “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. ¹³ Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish. ~ Joel 2:12-13 NLT

Joel prophesied to the people of Israel that the LORD was coming, so repent because that day will be a horrifying and dark day. It will be a day of great sorrow and fear, for the LORD’s wrath was coming. Today, it’s no different. The LORD is coming. He is on His way. He is preparing to come for His people to bring them to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, but for the wicked, those who refuse to bow their knee to the Almighty, He is treading the great wine press of the Wrath of the LORD.

Many of us believe that we will escape this great wrath because we’re Christians, but that word no longer means what it did so long ago. There’re Christians that don’t stand for righteousness and believe they’re okay because God loves them, but they’re not the only ones deceived. There are Christians who lack love. Paul said if you can speak in the tongues of man and of angels but don’t have love, you are like a noisy gong. You can even move mountains, prophesy, and understand all the secrets of God, but still be nothing if we lack love. There is nothing greater than love.

So many Christians lack love today. We feel no sympathy or empathy for those who we believe deserve what they get, not realizing that we ourselves deserve to burn in the Lake of Fire for all eternity because of our sin. It’s only because of grace that we are saved by faith, not because we are better than anyone. We don’t deserve this gift of God. We don’t deserve life, but God graciously gives it to us because of His great love for us. So, love others with the same love God has loved us so that when Christ returns, we might escape that wrath and be welcomed into the rest of the LORD.

Don’t just treat your outer garments so that people think that you care or that you’re a good person. Don’t just retweet or repost a post. Don’t just comment praying hands. Get down on your knees and pray. Don’t just make it an outward appearance, but an inward appearance. Let it tear your hearts enough that you cry out to the LORD for mercy and grace over the lost, hurting, angry, and deceived. Let the love of God perfect you in every way possible. Let Him turn your heart of stone to a heart of flesh so that you might not be lost with others.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Tear Your Hearts.

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³⁷ And He came and found them sleeping, and He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? ³⁸ Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” ~ Mark 14:37-38

To see revelation, we must remain awake when others are asleep. Jesus went out of the presence of others and spent time in prayer and worship with His Father in Heaven. Never was Jesus without an answer for His accusers. It wasn’t because Jesus was, is, and always will be God because, on earth, He set aside His Godliness and became man. This was because He was awake in prayer when others slept. In fact, if we go to the last day before the crucifixion, we find that Jesus didn’t sleep. He spends the evening and night preparing His disciples and then spends the rest of the night not just praying for His own strength but for the strength of His disciples. Peter, James, and John were called by Jesus to come and pray with Him, but each one of them fell asleep. None were able to stay awake and pray with Him. Because of this, all of their earlier statements fell short, and each one of them fled. One, presumably John, ran away naked. Peter denied even knowing Him. Judas, who left after the Last Supper, only returned to betray Him.

They couldn’t stay awake in prayer, and so their spirit was weak. I’m not saying that we must never sleep; what I’m saying is that if you want to be able to withstand the coming persecution of the Church (Matthew 24 & 2 Thessalonians 2), then you have to seek God early in the morning and late at night when all others are asleep, especially in times of distress or when seeking a specific request from God or in times of need. All of us will give up sleep for something, whether it’s TV, spending time with family or friends, food, concerts, books, games, etc., but very few of us will stay awake for prayer to see a breakthrough in our lives, or to receive peace or strength. If you can stake awake for the world but not for God, your love has already begun to grow cold. Now is the time to build up your faith and love for God. Store up your food in the summer, don’t wait for the winter when the harvest is over. Prepare yourselves now. Seek God while He can still be found.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Prepare Your Hearts.

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⁹ Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. ¹⁰ In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come. ¹¹ Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist. ¹² Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, ¹³ for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city. ¹⁴ For the palace is forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks; ¹⁵ until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. ~ Isaiah 32:9-15

The LORD warned the women of Judah that their complacency would bring disaster upon the people. In fact, the grape harvest would fail, and they would no longer be able to gather in the harvest. To us today, that doesn’t mean much. What does it mean for the grape harvest to fail and the gathers unable to harvest their crop? Why would that be the punishment for complacency? I don’t believe that LORD is speaking physically. The grape harvest still came in Israel and Judah. The gathers still harvested their crop in Israel and Judah. God was warning them that if they remained complacent in their sin and at ease about it, then the grapes would be no more.

The grapes are what we make wine from. Jesus compared wine to the Old and New Covenant. On the Day of Pentecost, some who heard them speaking in tongues mocked them, saying they were drunk on the New Wine. I believe that the LORD was saying that He would remove the Spirit of God from them, and they would no longer see or hear a Word from the LORD. I believe God, through Isaiah, was prophesying and warning about the 400 years of silence that was to come to Israel. For He ends it with, “until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,”

What day was the Spirit poured out on all of mankind? The Day of Pentecost. After the Day of Pentecost, there arose prophets, healings, signs and wonders, like never before. And even more so, it gave the chance of salvation for all of mankind. Never had there been a time in history when the Greek believer was equal to the Jewish believer. For in Christ, there is neither Greek nor Jew. God shows no partiality.

So what does this mean for us? If we are like the women Isaiah prophesied to and remain complacent in our sin and at ease unrepentant, then the LORD will remove the grapes from us. He will cause those grapes that we once had flourishing in the fields to fail each time. For God cannot dwell in a temple that willingly houses other gods. When we willingly live in sin, we are willingly bowing down to sin and making it our god. If we remain complacent, history will repeat itself in us, and not only will the Word of God be shut up from us, but the new wine that represents the new covenant and the blood of Christ that washes us clean and covers us will be removed from us as well. Complacency will bring domination upon us, for to be complacent is to be a friend of the world. And to be a friend of the world is to be at enmity with God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t Live At Ease.

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¹² Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” ¹³ He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” ~ Matthew 15:12–14

Jesus said there are blind guides leading the blind into a pit. What does that mean? There are teachers out there who don’t understand what they are teaching. In fact, they don’t understand that their teaching is inaccurate and erroneous. Jesus said that they, being blind, meaning they don’t fully understand the word of God or what they are teaching (although they think they do), will lead others who are like themselves into a pit.

It doesn’t sound like they will accidentally stumble into the Promise Land. It doesn’t sound like they will accidentally stumble into Heaven. No, they will fall into a pit. Why? Because every tree that our Father has not planted will be rooted up. Every tree that will not bear fruit will be uprooted. This is why we have to be careful with who we listen to. Listen is why we have to be like the Bereans and check what everyone says versus what the Word of God says. That’s why we have to ask questions until we have the Truth. Not our own truth or someone else’s truth, but the only Truth. God’s Truth. This is the only Truth that matters.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Seek The Truth.

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¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who followed Him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. ¹¹ I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, ¹² while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ¹³ And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment. ~ Matthew 8:10-13

So, the centurion goes to see Jesus and explains to Him that his servant is ill and needs a healing. Jesus said, “Sure, I will come with you and heal him.” The centurion was like, “You don’t even need to come. Besides, I’m not worthy for You to come under my roof. Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” That pretty much floored Jesus. He was stunned when He heard this.

In fact, Jesus states that no one in all of Israel had that kind of faith. This would mean that not even Jesus’ disciples had that kind of faith. The men that walked and talked with Jesus daily didn’t have that type of faith. Even though they witnessed miracle after miracle. Healing after healing. Sign after sign. Wonder after wonder, their faith couldn’t compare to that of a man who had only heard of the good things of Christ.

Many of us in the Church are baffled by this. We can’t understand how the men that walked and talked with God have less faith than a man who had never met Him. But what many of us fail to realize is that we are often the disciples, not the centurion. When we grow up in Church, it’s easy to take the Bible and all of its promises for granted. It’s easy for us to miss out on something deeper with Christ because He’s always been there. When we allow the things of God (going to church, reading your bible, praying, worship, etc.) to become just another routine, then the Word of God slowly becomes less and less important. We slowly become asleep, and our faith slowly dies the deeper into a spiritual sleep we get.

So, when we come to Jesus, we need more than just head knowledge. We need a good real down to earth belief in who He is and what He can do. We need to strive for an unshakeable faith.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Ignite a Deeper Faith.

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¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. ¹⁵ So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. ~ 2 Corinthians 11:13-15

People often try to play around with the occult as if it’s nothing but fun and games. Even some Christians play around with tarot cards, ouija boards, horoscopes, and palm readings because they don’t believe that they’re anything more than just a bit of fun. But all of those things are of the occult. They aren’t games. They’re of the kingdom of darkness, and they have real power. They can truly entangle you in their chains, and the worst part is most don’t even know it.

The occult doesn’t always show up in dark gothic wear, holding a solid black skull enticing you to the dark side with blood, guts, and glory. No, instead, most of the time, the occult entices us dressed in regular clothing and holding a plate of cookies. And when we eat the cookies, we don’t even realize that the poison is slowly killing us. The worst part is that so many of us never wake up from that spiritual slumber, and that spiritual comma leads us to a spiritual death. How? Because the occult slowly convinces us that it’s not evil. That it’s light. That it’s good. That it can’t separate us from God because it isn’t bad at all. In fact, it may just even be a game.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Watch Out For The Trap.

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¹⁶ But as the Ark of the Lord entered the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. When she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she was filled with contempt for him. ²⁰ When David returned home to bless his own family, Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him. She said in disgust, “How distinguished the king of Israel looked today, shamelessly exposing himself to the servant girls like any vulgar person might do!” ²³ So Michal, the daughter of Saul, remained childless throughout her entire life. ~ 2 Samuel 6:16, 20, 23^NLT

David was dancing unashamedly before the Lord in worship, celebrating that the Lord’s presence would be dwelling in his place, in the city of David, yet Michal could not discern what David was doing and what was happening in the spiritual. She only saw through her eyes of jealousy and contempt that David was making a spectacle of himself before the servant girls; she was caught up with appearances before mankind.

It seems that, like her father Saul, the spirit of the Lord was not with her, and she had no discernment. She had never seen worship like that before and didn’t understand it, so she felt contempt for the man of God, and lack of spiritual discernment caused her to lose out on the blessing the Lord had for her that day. Instead of giving birth to something great, like a future king, she gave birth to nothing. We have to be careful what we say about the man of God or a move of the Holy Spirit; we need to pray for discernment so that we don’t miss out on our blessing.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Don’t React Like Michal.

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