What do you think about morning people? Would you consider yourself a morning person? Would you align more with the saying early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise? Or with Proverbs 27:14: A loud and cheerful greeting early in the morning will be taken as a curse! We have a few morning people in the Rice household. One of them is our three-year-old Matthew. He is so cute! Except when he wakes everyone else up in the house. On the occasion when our family stays up late, gets home from a long trip the night before, and attempts to catch up on our rest, Matthew never fails to rouse us out of bed, cheerfully saying, “The sun’s up, Mae (mom in Portuguese) it’s time to get up!”
I think we may all be able to learn something from our little toddler. Waking up is a beautiful thing. Seriously, it really is. When we wake up, we go from a state of unconsciousness to consciousness. We then have a new dawn, a new day in front of us- a gift to make of what we will. Our sleep schedule is a bit chaotic right now with all the hospital trips and nurse visits we’ve had over the past months, but I treasure the time when I can go to sleep, have uninterrupted sleep, and wake up early the next morning and spend focused time with the LORD and tasks at hand for the day.
For those of you that aren’t convinced, think about this. I saw a video this week of a man offering 10 million dollars to people, with only one catch- that they wouldn’t ever wake up again. What would you say to that? The people in the video looked at this guy like he was crazy. What good would $10 million be if you couldn’t ever wake up to enjoy it? The point he was making was simple- that waking up is a greater treasure than $10 million bucks. That’s a great perspective to have on the value of waking up.
What about waking up spiritually? Have you ever had a time when you were in a spiritual slumber? I think we all have times when we become zombie Christians, just going through the motions in the Christian walk- when we are sleepwalking through our faith. None of us intentionally go into Christian zombie mode, it just kind of happens. It happens when our world gets a little too busy and we don’t prioritize our walk with the LORD. It happens when we go into survival mode- when fear and anxiety choke the spiritual life out of us.
It takes diligence and focus to stay alert and active in our faith. Alert to the things God is trying to teach us, and the ways He wants to use us to make a difference. Active in the way we live, prioritizing service and discipleship over what is easiest and most comfortable for us. Staying spiritually awake is a lifelong pursuit of the utmost importance.
This weekend we will examine Christ’s words to a church that had fallen asleep and needed to wake up. These are powerful words that have resonated very strongly with me in my own life. I hope that as we walk through them together we will get a jolt of focus that will bring spiritual revival in our hearts and in the lives of our loved ones around us.
I invite you to join us this weekend as we study Christ’s words to the church of Sardis and get a wake-up call from Revelation 3:1-6 together. Our socially distanced service is on Saturday afternoon at 3:30, and our Sunday morning service is at 10:15, when you can join us in person or online. We also have Sunday School classes at 9 for all ages.
Have a great weekend and I look forward to pursuing Christ, Community, and the Great Commission Together with you soon!
-Pastor Nathan Rice