“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)
Just when you didn’t think that things could get much worse than they had been for nearly all of 2020, a new level of craziness surfaces only a few days after we welcomed the New Year. To be fair, everything is a matter of perspective. While Covid and the draconian way that leaders of cities, states and even our nation worked to take advantage and manipulate the situation to advance their own agendas we saw opportunities to develop new ways to minister, opportunities to work on relationships with our children and spouses and opportunities to serve those in need among us.
One of the “slogans” that came from the church as we developed a “stay home, stay safe” approach to continuing worship services on-line instead of in person was this one – “the church has left the building.” That statement really bothered me because I deeply believe that the church, that is, the living organism called the ecclesia, the fellowship of the saints and the body of Christ was NEVER meant to be constrained by four walls! In saying that, I am NOT saying that we SHOULD forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrew 10:25) but I AM saying that nowhere in the scriptures are we called to stay within the four walls of our church building and wait for those outside to come to us. Nevertheless, many believers are and have been content for a long time to limit the activities that they associate with church to what happens on the INSIDE of a building. That should not be and I say along with Paul that it is “high time to awake out of [our] sleep!”
To be fair to the context of (Romans 13), (v.11) concludes Paul’s exhortation that believers obey the governing authorities but to me, the the notion that Christians need to “wake-up” is a general statement applicable to every aspect of Christian life. Time is short – the Lord’s return is much closer today that ever has been before and we need to be about His work with more intensity and a greater sense of urgency than ever before as well.
As it happens, these words were laid on my heart the day after the craziness in the capitol took place. Again, and to be fair, craziness seems to be an ongoing problem in our nation and among our leaders but what I saw that day blew me away. Let me first say to you that I am a patriot! I love my country! My mind and my heart have been full of emotion over the last year as I have seen freedom, the flag, our rights as Americans, our shared faith etc., trampled upon. As I, like many of you watching from our living room TV sets saw the riots, fires and looting taking place in many cities around our county in the name of social justice over the previous year in addition to the mayhem in DC last week, my anger stirred and zeal for my nation was driving it. However, a few months back, after expressing some of my own frustrations on such things on social media and noting that bitterness was filling my heart, the Lord began to remind me of a few things that I feel we all need to remember today – one, we live in a fallen world and two, we need to redirect our zeal.
Over the next few days I hope you’ll bear with me as I unpack what the Lord laid on my heart concerning a godly approach to the days in which we live…
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