Awake From Sleep

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... “Wake up, sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.”

Ephesians 5;14

But to you who fear My name

The Sun of Righteousness shall arise

With healing in His wings;

And you shall go out

And grow fat like stall-fed calves.

Malachi 4:2

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The Word of God commends us to be alert and vigilant - to watch and to pray. To be awake is to be alert and sober-minded knowing that it is no longer you living life but it is Christ in you expressing His life through you.

To be awake is to be found standing. This is a standing in Christ so that Christ alone be seen in our life. We do not continue in the slumber of the old life, living a life of complacency and disillusion. But we wake up to righteousness. We arise to know the finished work of salvation that God has provided for us in Christ. The Apostle Paul writes that we are to "awake to righteousness, and do not sin..." (1Corinthians 15:34). The old flesh-life is full of the snare of sin because flesh only leads us into destruction, but the Spirit of God leads us into a more abundant life.

What brings an awakeness to God and His imputed righteousness to us through Christ is a mind renewed by the Word of God. When we submit to the authority and truth of the Word of God, we become conformed to Christ. Christ is ever alive and never sleeps nor slumbers. His life is an immortal life, a life not corrupted nor tarnished by the decay of the world. Today put on the Christ life. Awake to righteousness and be found standing for Christ to the very end. Yield to the Holy Spirit as He discloses the words of Jesus to you. May your confidence in God and His Word be strengthened. Our portion in Christ is greater glory, greater zeal for His truth, and greater passion for His message of salvation. This is what Christian transformation looks like - a greater reflection of Christ in us and through us.

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Romans 13:11-14

... if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:21-24