Awake

It is with a grieved heart that I write these words. It's been a rough year to say the least. I've watched as people that I once respected have turned their kindness away from me because I chose to follow Jesus and not them. I have watched in agony as people that I have led and cared for have chose not to follow Jesus completely and therefore gotten off track in their walk with God. Mostly, I have watched Christians around me become more and more calloused by sin, never turning to God and repenting, therefore becoming stagnant.

On what basis do I say these things, you might ask. I say these things on the basis of my Lord, Jesus Christ and as a disciple of his. I do not claim to be perfect, but I do recognize that something needs to change and it won't if we go on in the oblivion of our sin. He has called Christians to a higher standard, and we, simply put, won't submit to his calling.

It was a little over a year ago that I first started to become "spiritually awake." Before, I was a sleeping or dead Christian. Would I have made it into heaven if I had died as a sleeping Christian? For the sake of those who are asleep, I hope so! But I cannot know. However, to be asleep is to be lukewarm and God says that he will spit the lukewarm out of his mouth - we must be hot.

The Waking Process:  

It was painful. I've never been so at peace. I've never been so restless. It happened in a moment, yet it was a process.

Before this moment, I was stagnant in my faith. I was blind to my sin and the sin around me. I couldn't see it because I didn't want to see it - I didn't want to admit the depth of my need for Jesus because then I would have to change. I didn't want change, I was comfortable.

Then it happened. Overtime, I realized the depth of my sin and how much I needed Jesus and I fell on my face before the Lord. In that moment, I kicked out everything in my life that defined me including my family, friends and grades. It felt awful. When it was all out of the center of my heart, I pleaded for God to come in and he did. Peace, gratitude, and a feeling of home settled in that had not been there before. God had become my center and nothing else around me mattered.

The next few months, God began to show me the depth of this world's need for God. More than anything though, he showed me the depth of Christian's need for God. It was a horrific moment when I became fully aware of the need. I was walking around a Christian university campus and God showed me that we claim to be alive and awake, but really we are walking around dead. We are deceived.

It has been said that fire (life in Christ) spreads, and this is true. However, it can also be said that dead Christians make dead Christians. If we the church as a whole are dead, than we can expect that those who follow us will also be dead. This is tragic!

Here's The Deal. 

I am not saying that all Christians are dead. I know some people that are very alive and some others that are in the process of coming alive. This is exciting! What I am saying though is that we need to examine and reexamine our lives as Christians. We need to ask Christ to shine his light on our lives and convict us so that we might change and become like him. We need to die to our sin and flesh and ask God to burden our hearts for the things that burden his heart and we need to submit ourselves to his will that we might actually be effective for the Kingdom of God. As people who know Christ, we have a job and mission to push people towards Christ, if that is not happening, we are dead. We have a job to lift others up in prayer, and likewise, if we are not doing that, we are dead.

I think that it is time for us, the church, to examine ourselves and honestly look at the dead areas in our lives. I urge you, readers, pray and ask God that he would bring conviction into your life that you might change. For we, the church, do not want to stand before God on the day of Judgement and find that we too are calloused and dead.