"I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. WAKE UP, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete at the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you have received and heard. Keep it, and REPENT. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you," ~Revelation 3:1-3
This Bible verse allowed me to be very vulnerable and brutally honest with myself. Doing ministry in my church as a worship team member, extending out my hands to serve in my campus with Napa Valley College Intervarsity Christian Club, financially supporting missionary ministries in the Philippines - all of these things do not mean that I have it all together with God. They do not suggest that I am always right with Him. No, I am totally undone thinking that I am doing this Christian thing on point. Now I am here thinking to myself: Am I just putting up a facade to show this reputation of being alive? Am I being real with who I really am to Christ or just am I just wearing on my Christian suit the whole time?
If we are to be completely honest with ourselves, we know that we need a huge spiritual awakening right in this very moment! Because no matter what season we are in - whether we are at the top of the mountain feeling extremely submerged in the Spirit of God or we are at the valley sinking in shame and unworthiness, or just completely unconcerned with the things of God - there is this unending, insatiable hunger in our souls that cannot be satisfied with just one great encounter with Jesus! Experiencing Jesus is more than just a high or a great "season." He offers more freedom, more joy, more peace to us way more than the first real encounter with Him! Jesus is a treasure whose value is too great to be counted or even fathomed! He is a bottomless well who never runs out of new mysteries about Himself. We should stop thinking to ourselves that we have already figured Jesus Christ all out, that we knew all that there is about Him. He is vast beyond measure!
And if this life, and with all its complexity and whim, is gradually diminishing our actual revelation of who He is or decreasing our very desire to know more about Him, The Spirit of the Living God calls us with a constant invitation to strengthen what remains and is about to die! For if there is anything left in our faith that needs revival or an area of our life that is needing healing/freedom, we need to ask now or it will be too late. We need to be consciously aware of the zeal we have for Christ, because it may be taken away from us as we know it. We need to know if we can still answer this core question (which basically sums up what this faith is all about) with full confidence and actual testimony: Do we even remember how it truly feels to be loved by God or being genuinely in love with Him?
Church, if we continue to be complacent in our walk and slowly dying in our spirit, what will happen to our church as a whole? We have got to remember that we are not here to be entertained, to choose the church of our own preference, or to treat Jesus as a beautiful display in our seemingly picture/perfect life. The truth of the matter is, we are still as hopeless and lost as we are when we have not received Jesus as our Lord and Savior yet if we continue to live as our flesh please, and as though we were never redeemed from the pit of darkness. We are here to serve and give our lives the Only One True God. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, "You are not your own; you were bought at a price." Our lives is not our own and only the Creator can dictate when or how He wants to take it away from us. Let us remember at all times who we are and what we are made for. For only then we can find satisfaction and actualization of our very being and existence. We need to remember that (Philippians 1:21) "to live is Christ, and to die is gain." EVERYTHING IS ALL ABOUT JESUS CHRIST AND OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM!
Along with His omnipotence and goodness, the Lord is not tolerant of sin and lukewarmness. He seeks a generation who actively chooses Him over the world and who desperately runs after His own heart. He seeks, not create, that generation because He already know they are existing among us believers. If only we can go outside our bubbles and be brave enough to meet the desperation for joy, peace, and freedom that no one can get from this crooked world.
If we confess our need of Jesus, our Good Father in heaven is more than willing to fill our cups with more of Him.
“'Yet even now,'” declares the Lord, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.' Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” ~ Joel 2:12-13
