Awaken From Spiritual Slumber Archives

October 15, 2022October 15, 2022

Be Prepared Regardless of the Season

¹⁰For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:10

We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ Jesus. It’s not according to who you are. Or what you have done. It’s not according to the high position you held in this life. It’s not according to who you think you are. It’s not even according to if you believe or not. It’s this: “We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” There we will all be judged according to what we have done according to what is written in the books.

If we have hidden secrets like hate in our hearts or unforgiveness, and believe me, it will show, then the LORD, who is the judge of all the earth, will know. The Spirit of Slumber is ravaging through our world and Church taking many as its victim. Jesus is coming soon. The closer we come to that day, the more aggressive the Spirit of Slumber becomes, but don’t succumb to its attacks. Be prepared in season and out of season so that when the Son of Man, that is, Jesus, returns, He will find you doing what it is He called you to do. Then you will receive a great reward.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Prepared Regardless of the Season.

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Redeem Your Eternal Soul

³¹On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. ³²Remember Lot’s wife. ³³Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. ~ Luke 17:31-33

Lot, his wife, and his two daughters were saved from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. They were warned by the two angels not to stop or to look back because if they did, they’d be swept away. The Church is given the same warning, and just as Lot’s wife looked back, so are some of the Church. We, the Church, are the body of Christ. We’ve been redeemed from the coming destruction, so we don’t live in fear of the coming of Christ, but instead we are to say, “Come Jesus, come.” Yet, some of us look back just as Lot’s wife did.

How do we look back? By refusing to do the will of God for fear or losing all that we’ve built in this life. Today, the Church remains silent, refusing to correct or expose darkness for fear of backlash and the loss of comfort, but Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, that our lives aren’t our own because we were bought by the blood of Christ. This is why Jesus plainly states that whoever seeks to preserve their lives will lose it, but those who lose their lives will keep them. This isn’t just talking about physically dying for Christ. This is talking about spiritually dying to your wants and desires, so that you might live for Christ. This is why Jesus compared it to Lot’s wife looking back, because she didn’t want to give up the life she had for the life God had in store for her. She couldn’t imagine a better life than the one she built in Sodom, so she looked back wantingly. We are commanded by Christ not to seek to keep what we’ve built, just as they were commanded by the two angels not to look back. We have to give up the life we have planned for ourselves and all that we’ve built, in order to have the life Christ has in store for us.

This is the cross we are to carry as Christians, to be the light in this dark world. The only way we can light up this dark world is to speak the Truth and expose the darkness regardless of the consequences. This isn’t an easy cross to carry, but it is the only way to eternal life, for the blood of the wicked will be on the hands of all who remained silent as they blatantly sinned (Ezekiel 33:8-9). Don’t allow the fear of losing temporary security or your temporary body keep you from saving your eternal soul.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Redeem Your Eternal Soul.

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Pay Attention To The Gate

¹³Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. ~ Matthew 7:13-14

Jesus instructs, even warns His hearers, “Enter by the narrow gate. Keep away from the broad gate.” There are two gates because there are two paths. There are two paths because there are two destinations. One destination is life, and the other is destruction.

Oftentimes we get so caught up in the journey that as forget the destination. It’s as if we’re living according to the quote, “It’s not about the destination, but the journey.” That sounds so profound, and yet it’s so wrong. What good is a fun night of drinking if the destination is to drive home drunk and you kill someone or yourself? What good is a fun one-night stand if the destination is an abortion or a forced relationship with the wrong person? What good is a fun life of sin if the destination is Hell?

Don’t get caught up in the moment. Wake up your Spirit of Discernment. Look around you. Look at the road you’re on. Is it broad or narrow? Does it follow the path of Jesus or the world? Is it easy or do you have a cross over your shoulder?

Living for Christ isn’t easy. It will be the hardest thing you do in this life. Denying your flesh, putting Christ first, and carrying your cross are difficult. So many give up right before they reach their final destination. So many give up right before they receive their reward. Don’t give up. Awaken From your spiritual slumber, analyze your life, find the narrow gate, pick up your cross, and run to Jesus.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Pay Attention.

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Beware The Ungodly Distraction

²After some years he (King Jehoshaphat) went down to Ahab in Samaria. And Ahab killed an abundance of sheep and oxen for him and for the people who were with him and induced him to go up against Ramoth-gilead. ³Ahab king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat king of Judah, “Will you go with me to Ramoth-gilead?” He answered him, “I am as you are, my people as your people. We will be with you in the war.” ~ 2 Chronicles 18:2–3

Ahab did not come up to Jehoshaphat, but rather, Jehoshaphat went down to Ahab. Please understand sin is not attracted to Godliness, but rather, Godliness is distracted by sin. Sin will pull and pull until it drags you down to where it is. It will cause you to lose your mind and your sense of direction.

Ahab then convinced Jehoshaphat to go into the war wearing his royal garments while he himself would go in disguise. So, when the enemy saw Jehoshaphat, they immediately thought it was Ahab, king of Israel, and turned to attack him, but when he cried out, they turned and stopped chasing him. So, his life was only narrowly spared.

The problem with ungodly alliances is that they will take you further than you want to go and cause you to make the wrong decisions without even realizing that it is against God’s earthly will for your life.

Just as Jehoshaphat didn’t expect to almost lose his life in an alliance with King Ahab, so do many Christians expect not to lose their spiritual life in an alliance with sin and darkness. We’re in the battle, in the real enemies’ clothes, instead of our spiritual armor. So, what happens? We’re attacked and chased. This is where the Church is. We’re on the brink of death. The enemy has us in his sights. There’s no escape that we can see. It’s time for us to cry out to Jesus. That is the only way we will be spared. Cry out and live. Jesus is the only Way, the Truth, and the Life. Turn to Him and live. Wake up from your spiritual slumber caused by the deceit of the enemy.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Get Out of Bed With the Enemy.

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Tear Your Hearts

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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Prepare Your Hearts

³⁷And He came and found them sleeping, and He said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not watch one hour? ³⁸Watch 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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Don’t Live At Ease

⁹Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent daughters, give ear to my speech. ¹⁰In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the grape harvest fails, the fruit harvest will not come. ¹¹Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and tie sackcloth around your waist. ¹²Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine, ¹³for the soil of my people growing up in thorns and briers, yes, for all the joyous houses in the exultant city. ¹⁴For 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; ¹⁵until 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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Never Be Satisfied

⁴But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. ⁵Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. ~ Revelation 2:4-5

Many of us have become satisfied in our faith, and many of us believe that this is good because we are now comfortable in our faith, but comfort is not satisfaction. Comfortable in your faith means you’re sure of your faith and your salvation in Christ Jesus. Whereas satisfied means you’re satisfied with your relationship with Christ and stop seeking Him and all that He has for you. Moses spoke to the LORD through a burning bush (Exodus 3), he saw the wonders of God through the ten plagues of Egypt (Exodus 7:14-12:14), he saw God in the form of a pillar of cloud and in the form of a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:17-22), yet he always sought more of God (Exodus 33:12-23). And what Moses desired and sought from God was what he received.

When we become satisfied in our relationship with Christ, our love grows cold, just like in a relationship with another person. If we stop seeking to get to know our friend or partner more, then the relationship will slowly grow cold, and you won’t even realize it. Don’t allow yourself to grow cold in your faith. Stay on fire for God so that He might continue to reveal Himself to you because we can never know God enough. There is always more to know or learn about Him. We can always grow closer to Him. The moment we become satisfied in our relationship with God is the moment we begin to walk away from Him and into the arms of another.

LORD God, please set a fire deep inside of me that burns bright for You. Help me to keep the flames burning so that they never grow dim. Help me to pant for You as the deer pants for water because You are even more important than water. Without You, I am nothing. Help me to live my life in a way that shows that to You and the world. Help me to never be satisfied in my relationship with You, LORD God. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Seek The Truth

¹²Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” ¹³He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. ¹⁴Let 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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Mourn In Its Season

¹ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: ²a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; ³a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; ⁴a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; ~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

For everything, there is a season. Nothing happens randomly. Nothing happens out of its season and doesn’t fail. As humans, it’s easy to say that this is Truth, but it’s much harder to act like it is Truth. When we live out of the season that we have to be in, we begin to die inside. Sometimes, we completely refuse to live in the season we have to live in in order to get through our situation, and our spirit dies within us. And sometimes, depending on circumstances, we even die physically because of it.

So many of us struggle with grief because we either don’t want to face it or we don’t know how to face it. Because of this, the suicide rate goes up with each generation. Many of us don’t mourn because we’re afraid to. Many of us don’t laugh because we feel like we can’t because of our grief. It almost feels like we are stomping on the grave of a loved one if we move forward with our lives. It almost feels like if we laugh or enjoy life, we’re doing something wrong because they’re no longer with us. Mourning is necessary. Something both spiritually and physically is released and comforted when we go through our season of mourning. It isn’t easy to mourn, but always remember that it’s just for a season because after you have mourned, God will comfort you and fill you with joy. Many of us miss out on the joy of the LORD because we refuse to mourn. Don’t miss out on joy. Don’t miss out on dancing. Don’t miss out on living because you are in mourning.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Mourn In Its Season.

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Tag: Awaken From Spiritual Slumber

Be Prepared Regardless of the Season

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