Awake!

The other day I overheard one of my friends mention that he was in a church meeting where they were discussing what they needed as a church to attract new people. He said we need a move of the Holy Spirit and someone countered with, no, we need more than that... When he said that I gasped out loud because these words exploded in my spirit and I almost shouted them aloud - If you think you need more than a move of the Holy Spirit, then you have not had a move of the Spirit!

I get it, I’ve worked at churches for eighteen years. I understand the urgency that you feel when it seems like no one wants to listen to the message you have to share. I understand the feeling of fighting back fear when it seems like there isn’t enough money for the church to keep running. I get it. But to say that we need something more than “just a move of the Holy Spirit” shows how far we have come as a people. This is the Bride of Christ saying that she needs more than her Holy Bridegroom. Tears flood my eyes so I can barely write.

Oh people we need to wake up! Come awake from your slumber and look around you, the Bridegroom approaches and we are still focused on the things of this world! I have had the wonder of the smallest of tastes of His presence and it has left me wrecked. I go about my day with longing a constant drumbeat in my heart. I crave His touch, His peace, one word from His mouth. I would give anything to spend a minute wholly saturated in His presence. No really - anything. For one minute. I know it would not be enough, but even that small a time is worth anything I can give. Oh my Groom your Bride longs to know you more! Eternity is not enough to plumb the depths of you!

Awake my darling and come away – hear the Bridegroom calling you, calling you, calling you…

Have we truly become so enamored of the world that we have lost the voice of love inside?

What would this life be like if instead of the things that consume our time outside of work, our hobby became the pursuit of God? What if, like when you were courting your earthly love, He became the focus of all your time and energy? What if you became addicted to the sweetness of His presence until all you could think about was finding another minute to steal away to be with Him? Impossible, you say? Not practical, you say?

Oh dear one, one taste of His presence and your deep will connect to the deep of Him and you will never look away. But just like early earthly love you have to protect it. Just like you didn’t spend all your date time at the movies because you can’t know each other when all you do is mutually stare at a screen, you can’t get up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch tv and go to bed and expect the relationship to grow.

Wake up oh Bride, your Bridegroom is calling!

Wake up!

Wake up!

Wake up!

There is nothing this world offers that can compare to spending time with Him. Hear Him, even as you read this, your spirit longs for its home and the author of your eternity.

It is time to put away the world. Long enough we have dabbled with it. We played with it like a toy. “Can I get this caught up in it? Well how about this much? Maybe just a littttle bit more” NO, ENOUGH! You stand at a crossroads. One way is well-trodden, comfortable, easy, it leads to more of what you already have, a life with the occasional date with the Groom, mostly on Sundays so it doesn’t mess with the routine of the week.

The other way leads down a path far less trodden. One that says this world and its deceptive pleasures have cost me too much. My Bridegroom calls and I’m going to answer. I’m going to draw near to Him in every way. I’m going to pursue Him with passionate love. I’m going to wake up from my slumber and run after Him with everything I’ve got. Because this world holds nothing of value that I want more than I want Him. His blessed words to me assure me that my pursuit of Him cannot hold a candle to His pursuit of me back! He runs after me! His Bride! His chosen one! Passionate pursuit is my destiny!

Oh lover of my soul awake your Bride! Call us out from among the lies that hold us to a lessor life. We long for the Great Awakening without realizing that it begins in us! How can you awaken the world to yourself if your Bride stays glutted on the pursuit of the next thing, the next tv series, the next sporting event, the next distraction. You came to give us life abundantly, but you didn’t mean for us to mistake the counterfeit for the reality of life in your Spirit. That is the life you meant us to find.

The last Great Awakening must happen in the heart of your Bride before she can call out for the rest of the wedding party.

This Bride is arrayed not just in Robes of Righteousness, but she wears the Weapons of a Warrior! Why? Because she needs to fight! Fight back the demon of slumber, fight back the status quo of the lessor life, fight back the dust of distraction that has been thrown into her eyes, fight her way back to her first love! This is why she wears her armor - she fights to awaken.

Open our eyes, our ears, our souls to you! Forgive us for growing deaf to your voice and deaf to your Spirit. We didn’t mean to lose ourselves – We… just… got…busy… so very busy…. We lost our most precious thing. Our tender heart to our first love. Oh how far we have gone.

Awake oh sleeper! Fight off the chains you didn’t know have ensnared you. Fight for your loved ones who won’t know Him unless they see His power. Fight for those who are caught by the evil one and have grown so jaded that only “greater things than He has done” will jar them awake.

Fight for the great awakening in yourself so that others can be greatly awakened!

Even now it is not too late. He is at the door, He has been knocking a long time; our busyness covered the sound. Oh world washed Bride, go to the door, open it to your love.

Ask Him to fan the flames of your once bright love.

Ask Him to help you change your course to the one less traveled.

Ask Him to remove the graveclothes of the world from your heart.

Ask Him to replace the tyranny of the urgent with the peace of a heart in love with it’s maker.

Awake oh Bride for your love, the Bridegroom is calling you to awake!