Time to Awake Out of Sleep.

Wake up!

 

Wake up! Stop sleeping! The chaos all around us sounds the cry of wakefulness, of watchfulness. You say you are awake, does this mean you've not made provisions towards your flesh, towards your self-serving ways? Does this mean you are walking honestly? Does this mean you've put on the LORD JESUS CHRIST and no longer strive towards a life void of Him and His ways? 

 

What were His ways when He walked the earth? He HURT NO ONE. Did He show righteous anger at times? Yes. Did He reveal a deep sorrow as well? Yes. Did He know the joy of being one with the Father? Yes. Did He show pity for the sorrowful, the pitiful, the sickly, the diseased, the possessed, the wounded, the sinners in snared? Yes, yes, and yes to all. What Jesus did NOT do was harm anyone, not in any way. Jesus never raised a hand to another to strike them. Jesus never used His words to wound another. Jesus was a man of peace. In righteous anger He overthrew tables laden with wares that should never have been in the temple. In righteous anger He made a scourge and drove out those who should never have desecrated His Father's house. Did He wound any man? There is no record of it. His fury alone drove out the evil ones. Surely if he'd struck any they would have raised a cry against Him and there were plenty who wanted to see Jesus caught up in wrong doing. You can scare people into fleeing quite easily if you have need to. Imagine someone entering a store where you are shopping and they are running around with a whip, yelling for you to get out. You wouldn't stand there waiting to be hurt, you'd run. Jesus endured a lot of suffering unjustly. Jesus taught us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies. Jesus doesn't want us fulfilling the lusts of our flesh- anything that would destroy the love we are to have for one another- the love we would want them to have for us in same situations. We are to love. To love.

Our actions speak for us all the time, more than any word we could ever utter. 

 

We need to wake up out of our sleep, knowing that no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the day, no matter how soon our Savior is to return, that we are ready always, ready now.

 

Rom 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that NOW it is high time to awake out of sleep: for NOW is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

Rom 13:13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

Rom 13:14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

 

Make not provisions for the flesh.

 

Rom 8:12  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 

Rom 8:13  For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

 

Gal 5:16  This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 

Gal 5:17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 

 

Gal 5:24  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 

 

Col 3:5  Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 

Col 3:6  For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: 

Col 3:7  In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. 

Col 3:8  But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.

 

1Pe 2:11  Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul

 

1Jn 2:15  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 

1Jn 2:17  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. 

 

Joh 2:13  And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 

Joh 2:14  And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 

Joh 2:15  And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; 

Joh 2:16  And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.