Devotional: Awakening

Awakening

"Besides this you know what [a critical] hour this is, how it is high time now for you to wake up out of your sleep (rouse to reality). For salvation (final deliverance) is nearer to us now than when we first believed (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Christ, the Messiah)" (Romans 13:11, Amplified).

I was a little restless at bedtime last night so I sat down in front of the TV with a cup of orange juice fulling expecting to get sleepy quickly. Instead, I stumbled across a movie on AMC with Robin Williams called "Awakenings." I had never heard of it before, but it was made based on a true story. I was very moved by this story for two reasons: one, because it was a true story; and two, because it had many spiritual parallels.
Apparently, there was a doctor in 1969 who went to work at a facility that dealt with long-term (if not life-long) patients with chronic and extremely debilitating diseases. This doctor was assigned to victims of an encephalitis epidemic which left them in a catatonic state. They could not do anything for themselves. Their arms and hands remained in crimped postitions as they gazed at nothing all day long. If someone spoke to them, there was no response whatsoever. However, one day the doctor discovered that one of the patients had a surprising reflex. If you threw a baseball towards her from across the room, her arm would reach out and catch it although she continued to appear otherwise non-responsive.

To make a long story short, the doctor began doing a variety of tests on these patients to find out if they were truly awake on the inside although they appeared catatonic on the outside. In the summer of 1969, after administering doses of an experimental drug to these patients, they all awakened! They did not realize they had been in their prior condition for 25-30 years, but now they could talk, walk, interact with others, as well as many other things. It was truly amazing. Unfortunately, it didn't last. The medicine only had a short-term effect on the patients and after a few months they all returned to their original disposition with no known reason. In the end, the doctor stated that although he had no understanding as to what helped or didn't help, he did know one thing for sure and that was that every human being has an inner person that needs to be awakened regardless of what we see on the outside (my interpretation).

Is this not true of our spiritual lives? Paul once said, "Awake to Righteousness..." (1 Corinthians 15:34)! Before Christ, all human beings are physically alive, yet spiritually catatonic. Yet when the Spirit of the Living God comes to make His home within believers, there is a great awakening! "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation..." (2 Corinthians 5:17). Physically, we may look the same on the day of our salvation as we did the day before, but we are not the same. And over time, that which has come alive on the inside of a new believer begins to show itself on the outside. I am not the same person today that I was before being born-again. In fact, if I ever tell stories of my past, most people don't believe that I really did all those things because it is so different than who I am now.

Someone once said, "If every day is an awakening, you will never grow old. You will just keep growing." That is how it is with our salvation. When our spirit man is born-again (awakens to new life), every day is now an opportunity to grow in Christ. I believe this is some of the underlying meaning to Paul's words to the church in Rome when he said, "...know what [a critical] hour this is, how it is high time now for you to wake up out of your sleep (rouse to reality). For salvation (final deliverance) is nearer to us now than when we first believed (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Christ, the Messiah)." He was not speaking of literal sleep. Paul was referring to the catatonic state we once walked in and the danger of falling back into that state. Salvation is not a one-time event in a person's life. It began on a certain day and was intended to journey with that person. Salvation is deliverance, safety, preservation, healing and soundness of mind. All of us need these provisions on a daily basis, not just one time at its introduction.

This is why it is so very important for us to awake to righteousness! Righteousness is both a position and an action. It is first our right-standing with God; our ability to stand before Him without guilt or inferiority as we had never sinned. And then righteousness is our response to God's grace. It is the daily fruit we bear in our lives as we "...do everything in word or deed in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17). Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

We are living in a critical hour. We do not have to guess when the Lord Jesus will return for His Church; all we have to know is that His return is one day closer today than it was yesterday! It "...is nearer to us now than when we first believed..." The scriptures encourage us to awake (and stay awake) to righteousness because "In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death" (Proverbs 12:28).
Carl Gustav Jung once said, "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart ... Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." It is Christ within us! The very thought of it should cause our hearts to leap with inexpressible joy. It should be our motivation everyday to remain awake in the midst of darkness. Jesus gave us this warning: "Are there not twelve hours in the day? Anyone who walks about in the daytime does not stumble, because he sees [by] the light of this world. But if anyone walks about in the night, he does stumble, because there is no light in him [the light is lacking to him]" (John 11:9-10, Amplified).

We have been awakened by the True Light. Jesus is the "...life, and the life {is} the light of men" (John 1:4). The world around us is dark and we are always tempted to sleep instead of shining our light in the darkness. "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them... But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us" (2 Corinthians 4:3-4, 7).

We have been awakened. All I can say now is: "Remain awake to Righteousness!"