ARE YOU SLEEPING?

BIBLE PASSAGE:
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the
owner of the house will come back – whether in the evening,
or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he
comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.”
(Mark 13:35-36)

MEDITATION:
Have you ever had a day at work when your boss was ‘out of the office’
attending a meeting or seminar offsite? Remember how much more
you enjoyed the day than when your boss was ‘in the office’? Your boss
may not be one who micro-manages; he or she may be one you really
enjoy having as your manager, but you just seem to relax more when
he or she is ‘out of the office’.

Of course, you still have the same accountability for your tasks, but you
don’t feel as uncomfortable socializing with your co-workers throughout
the day. However, if your boss has some specific expectations for you to
complete that day, you may not manage your time as well, and as a result,
you have to work late and scramble to finish the work you were assigned.

As Christians, the Lord has some expectations for us as well. He wants
us to be active for Him and His kingdom. Believers are given spiritual
gifts that we are expected to discover, and then use them as we serve in
His earthly ministry task force.

We should remain in close contact with the Lord through Bible study,
worship, and prayer. Our relationship with Him was never intended to
be similar to an exam in school, where we often ‘cram’ for it at the very
last possible moment.

In school we ‘cram’ for exams because we have procrastinated throughout
the school year and failed to stay in close contact with the subject we were
studying. If we are good at ‘cramming’, then we can recover from our bad
planning, even though it may cost us many hours of sleep.

However, our closeness with the Lord is a relationship that we should take
serious, and work on increasing it each day. When we do, we can better
understand our spiritual gifts and how He wants us to use them. We can
learn to appreciate His presence, and how He will guide us in what He
wants us to do.

Even though He is not visible, we should consider Him to be ‘in the office’
every day. That means we know that He is always available, and not off
somewhere ‘out of pocket’ and unreachable. We should be living our lives
with a constant anticipation of the return of Jesus Christ! If we could live
every day as though it may be the very last one before the final judgment,
what a difference it would make in our lives here on earth!

We shouldn’t be guilty of allowing Satan to discourage our activities
for the Lord by giving us thoughts like,
    “The end of the world hasn’t come yet, so why think
      about it; it’s probably a thousand years away.”

If we embrace these kinds of thoughts, then we will look at the sin in
our lives differently, won’t we? Even though we know sin is a violation
of God’s commandments, we will develop the idea that we can sin along
the way to please ourselves, and some day we will reach a point in our
life when we finally decide to stop sinning.

But it doesn’t work like that, does it? In his cleverness, Satan can use
sin in our lives to create a desire in us to sin even more. It becomes a
downward spiral into an endless rut that is difficult to climb out of,
and only gets deeper. We can suddenly find ourselves so strongly in
the grip of sin, that even when we want to stop sinning, we can’t (not
in our own strength….it will take divine intervention for us to break 
the chains of Satan’s control over us).

Evangelist Dwight L. Moody used to say,
    “I never preached a sermon without thinking that
      possibility the Lord may come before I preach another.”

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, a British clergy-man, said,
    “I never begin my work in the morning without thinking
      that perhaps he may interrupt my work and begin His
      own. I am not looking for death. I am looking for Him.”

ACTION:
How deep and close is your relationship with the Lord? Do you
have such a strong fellowship with Him that He has shown you
the spiritual gift He has given you?

If someone were to ask you,
    “What is your spiritual gift and
      how are you using it to serve the Lord?”
how would you respond?

Are you fulfilling God’s desire for your life? Do you look forward
to the day when you will see Him face to face, or, are you thinking
more in terms of ‘cramming’ for righteousness, when you think 
the return of Jesus is near?

The scriptures tell us that we should not be sleeping (or inactive)
when He returns. Jesus tells us,
    “If you love me, keep my commands.”
    (John 14:15)

Some of His commands tell us what we should avoid, and others tell us
what we should be doing. One of the reasons we are told to be ‘active’
could be:
    It will open the door to many blessings we will miss out on
    when we are ‘inactive’ in using our spiritual gifts to serve
    Him, and to point others to His Son, Jesus.

As an example, look at what we are told about tithing:
    “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of
      Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your
      ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and
      have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to
      you,” says the Lord Almighty.
    “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
    “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
    “But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
    “In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your
      whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the
      whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food
      in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty,
    “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven
      and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room
      enough to store it.”
      (Malachi 3:6-10)

Pray,
“Heavenly Father, thank You for Your desire to have a
close relationship with me. Forgive me for not making
a close with You as important as it should be. Help me
to know with assurance which spiritual gift You have
given me; encourage me and show me how to use it in
the way You want it to be used. Teach me to be an active
member of Your earthly ministry team. You have blessed
me abundantly and I want to show You my appreciation
by being active for You. When I see the ‘signs of the times’,
I believe that Your return is not far away, and I don’t want
to be guilty of procrastinating and failing to do the things
You expect of me. If I am selfish with my time and talents,
help me to become selfless in with a desire to please You. I
am thankful for Your promises of an eternity of bliss, but I
know I should also be busy for You now. As father teaches
his son or daughter, teach me what I need to be doing now.”

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