Are You Dead or Alive?
To the angel of the church in Sardis
write:
These are the words of Him who holds the seven
spirits of God and the seven stars.
I know your deeds; you have a reputation of
being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains
and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight
of My God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard;
obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like
a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet
you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They
will walk with Me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who
overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot
out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before
My Father and His angels.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit
says to the churches.
Revelation 3:1-6 |
Picture this scene: A car pulls up to
the emergency room at your local hospital and a lady jumps out and runs
into the building crying, "Please help us! My husband is not breathing!
I think he is dead!" The staff hurries out, puts the man on a stretcher
and begins CPR before they get into the building. Once inside, they
hook him up to a monitor and use the defibrillator as soon as possible.
Sometimes the man lives … sometimes he dies. With increasing frequency
lives are being saved around the country as people respond quickly and
properly because of better and better training.
Tragically, there are a number of people who
are alive, but in many ways are actually dead. They go through the
motions of living, but cannot make any contribution to the lives of others
because of disease processes. They eat, sleep, or breathe, but they
cannot carry on a conversation or enjoy life.
Another group of people lives only for illegal
drugs or illegitimate sex. They go from one high to another until
their bodies give out and they die. Wasted lives! Why?
Because they are spiritually dead.
A person who has not received Jesus Christ
as his or her personal savior is spiritually dead. In that condition we
cannot KNOW God. Once we receive salvation the growth process begins.
And the growth process is absolutely fascinating, isn’t it? It’s
like learning to walk.
We have to work at listening to God.
In reality we are as "in charge" of our lives as the daddy in the following
story was.
One evening Mark Mony and his preschool daughter, Krystal, were on the
couch chatting. "Daddy, you're the boss of the house, right?"
Mark proudly replied, "Yes, I'm the boss of the house."
Krystal quickly burst his bubble when she added, "'Cause Mommy put you
in charge, huh, Daddy?"
Rhonda Mony, Lake Elsinore, California.
Christian
Reader, "Kids of the Kingdom."
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Yep, God put you and me in charge of our lives
… but He expects us to be listening to His leadership if we want to grow
and develop.
The church in Sardis was spiritually dead.
Only a few of its members remained faithful to the gospel. Outwardly
the church appeared alive and well and they had a reputation of success
and spirituality. They may have had an exciting form of worship,
but Jesus was obviously not impressed. Jesus looked at their inner
heart just as He is looking at ours today. What does He find?
Jesus said, "You have a few people who have
remained true to God." (verse 4) God always has a remnant.
But the rest of us cannot ride into heaven on the shirttails of the
faithful few. Your mother’s relationship with God will not save you.
You have to have your own personal relationship with the Lord!
Look at verse 5. "…I will never blot out his
name from the book of life." The first part qualifies whose name
He will not block out: "He who overcomes." I have to ask, "Are you
an Overcomer?" To have our name blotted out of the Book of Life is
to lose eternal life itself! We don’t want that to happen!
A.W. Tozer describes true
spirituality. He says that it manifests
itself in certain dominant desires.
1. The desire
to be holy rather than happy.
2. The
desire to see the God’s honor advanced through his life even if it means
that he himself must suffer temporary dishonor or loss.
3. The
spiritual man wants to carry his cross.
4. He sees
everything from God's viewpoint.
5. He would
rather "die right than to live wrong."
6. The
desire to see others advance at his expense.
7. The
spiritual man habitually makes eternity-judgments instead of time-judgments.
The people of Sardis had sins in their lives.
Those sins included hypocrisy and no true relationship with God.
The Bible calls this “having a form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof.” Much of the church world today is plagued with this same
problem! They have a spirit of religion but they do not know God
as a personal Friend and heavenly Father.
From the outside, things in Sardis looked great.
But God knows our hearts! He is not fooled by outward appearances.
This church was spiritually dead… and a spiritually dead church represents
dead souls. Many were plain old-fashioned
hypocrites while others just didn’t have their
lives together. Jesus called upon them to wake up! He wanted
them to be watchful against their enemies, and to be active and earnest
in their duties for the kingdom of God! They needed to learn to depend
on the Holy Spirit to revive and strengthen their faith and spiritual desires.
We cannot serve God without the help of the Holy Spirit. God wants
us on fire for Him!
Whenever we are off guard, we lose ground.
If you are playing sports – football, basketball or baseball - you need
to be alert when the ball comes your way! The same is true in our
spiritual lives! If not, our works are hollow and empty; prayers
are not filled up with holy desires, alms-deeds not filled up with true
charity.
What is the most important thing in your life?
Where does God fit in? Is communion with God something you
eagerly anticipate or is that communion just an afterthought? Do
we give our day of worship careful planning and make it a real celebration,
or do we just work seven days a week and wonder why we are tired all the
time?
Matthew Henry notes that in seeking a revival
in our own souls, or the souls of others, it is needful to compare what
we profess with the way we live so that we may be humbled and quickened
to hold fast that which remains.
Do you hear from God or are you just working,
hoping to do His will. The following powerful story illustrates the point
of listening!
Before refrigerators,
people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls,
no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and
lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses,
and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the
summer.
One man lost a valuable
watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully
raking through the sawdust, but didn't find it. His fellow workers also
looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about
the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and
soon emerged with the watch.
Amazed, the men asked
him how he found it.
"I closed the door,"
the boy replied, "lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I
heard the watch ticking."
Often the question
is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough,
and quiet enough, to hear.
(Philip Gunter in Fresh
Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker),
from the editors of Leadership.)
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Painfully Honest
A little girl learned
an exciting scripture in church. It was, "Let your light so shine
before men that they may see your good works and give glory to our Father
who is in heaven." However, she did not understand what it meant, so she
asked her mother. Her mom said, "Well, it means that when you
are good and kind and thoughtful and obedient, you are letting Christ's
light shine in your life before all who know you."
The very next Sunday
in Sunday school, the little girl got into a fight with another student.
This created an uproar - to such an extent that the Sunday school teacher
had to go and find her mother to get her settled down in the class.
Her mother was concerned
when she got to the classroom and said, "Sweetie, don't you remember about
letting your light shine for the Lord before men?" The girl blurted
out, "Mom, I have blowed myself out."
W. Frank Harrington, "The Love
That Brought Him,"
Preaching Today, Tape No. 51.
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In order to be alive to God we have to die
to our own desires. When that happens, our wills will be replaced
by God’s will. Dr. Cho pastors the world’s largest church in Seoul,
South Korea. When he was asked what he did to become pastor of the
largest church in the world, he said, "I pray, I obey.
I pray, I obey." When we do that, we are spiritually alive!
Three Keys to Spiritual Success
.The
following is adapted from Joyce Meyer’s teaching.
1. Be willing to Do it God’s Way
Are you willing to choose God’s way instead
of what you feel or think? How often have we felt prompted to do
something that we knew was right, but we didn’t do it. Why?
Our human nature or our body didn’t want to do it! So – who was god
in that situation? Certainly not the God of the universe!
Jesus taught this valuable lesson to St. Peter.
Peter and his staff had fished all night without results. They were tired
and wanted to go to bed. After Jesus borrowed their boat to use in
His preaching ministry He told Peter to cast his net on the wrong side
of the boat. The end result? Lots of fish!
Galatians 2:20 (NLT) "I myself no longer live,
but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting
in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." What does
He mean? We should be thinking, I am no longer living by what
I want, what I think, and what I feel. Rather, I am living by the Word
of the Anointed One Who lives within me. Ask yourself … who is
guiding me?
2. Be Willing to Make an Investment
In order to get a good wheat crop you have
to invest a lot of time, money and energy. Then you pray and believe
and give God and nature time and you have a wheat crop.
The same concept applies to spiritual matters!
Give God the time and energy necessary. Spend lots of time and energy
in the Word of God and the ways of God and watch things change! Galatians
6:9 (NLT) "So don't get tired of doing what is good. Don't get discouraged
and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate
time."
3. Be Free of the Fear of Man
Learn to be a God-pleaser, not a man-pleaser.
Galatians 5:17, 18, "For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to
the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.
They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law."
| Am I now trying to win the approval of men,
or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying
to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians
1:10 |
Are you alive to God today?
Or are you like the little girl who said, "Mom, I have blowed myself out."
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