Wake Up!

Wake Up!

Revelation 3:1b-3 “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 found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know when I will come to you.”

Yesterday I started to read the book of Revelation. Over the last few months, I have heard people reference it, and I don’t remember ever reading it. I know I have at least listened to it because I have been through the Bible in A Year  Podcast with Father Mike twice, and about 12 years ago, I did a study program with my friend called Read the Bible in 90 days. We read the Bible, I listened a lot as I bought the audio Bible, and then each week we would meet and watch a video explaining all about the part we had just read. Because of all this, I know I have heard Revelation before, and yet I had no idea what my friends were talking about when they mentioned things in Revelation. So I decided to check it out this week.

A little side note here, if you have never done a Bible Study, can I invite you to give one a try? There are online ones, and I am sure there is a church in your area that also has one going on right now. Bible Studies are amazing for so many reasons. The Bible is complex, and it is deep. There are so many layers to everything you read in the Bible. It can also be confusing because of the language it uses and because of the difference in Biblical times vs now. I love learning about the Bible and what is actually being said in the various chapters. A lot of times, the people who are doing the Bible study will also tell you what the various words meant in Hebrew or Greek. It is fascinating!

Back to today’s verse. I chose this verse because it scared me a little. The first line in today’s verse says, “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up!” This really hit me. I think it hit me because I think most people think they are pretty good people. I think if we asked most people if they thought they were going to heaven or hell, they would say heaven. I want to believe that most people are going to heaven. Yet, in the Bible, that is not what it says. Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate, broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate, and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

I don’t think it would be good to constantly be thinking about whether we will be going to heaven or hell or not. I do think we should think of it from time to time and evaluate our lives. There are a lot of different opinions about what you need to do to get into heaven. Some believe you need to receive the Eucharist in order to go to heaven. Some believe you need to say out loud that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. Some believe you need to be born again. These are all found in different parts of the Bible. There is so much found in the Bible, and I definitely am not an expert.

All I know is what the Lord is putting on my heart. I feel the Lord wants me to tell you today to remember what Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Are we doing this? Are we loving God with our heart, mind, and soul?

That question is much easier to answer than the second question. Are we loving our neighbor as we love ourselves? This is something to think about. We must remember that when Christ says love your neighbor, he doesn’t just mean the person who lives to the right and left of you. He means, do you love everyone else in the world? Do you love those in your town and your state? Do you love those who run the country? Do you love those who run the churches? Do you love those who are hard to love? Luke 6:32 says, ““If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.”

This verse made me sit up and take notice this morning because plenty of people in the past have had a reputation for being a good person, a holy person, and yet later it comes out that they were not. This could be all of us. Maybe we haven’t done some truly terrible things, but are we harboring unforgiveness in our hearts? Are we despising some people who live in this world? Do we struggle to love those who are hard to love? Struggling to follow the Lord’s word is ok. We can bring Him that struggle and He will help us with it. I think we run into trouble when we aren’t struggling with it because we have decided not to pay attention to it, or we have given ourselves permission not to follow certain things the Lord says.

God is always available for us to talk to. He is available for us to ask questions to and for us to receive guidance from. However, often we think or we assume that we know what God is thinking, even though we haven't asked him. We assume that God is ok with us not forgiving the person who attacked us or our loved one because He knows how hurt we were and how hard that would be. God wouldn’t want us to forgive someone like that anyway. We think God is ok with us not forgiving our family members because He knows all they put us through. He knows how terrible they were to us, and he couldn’t possibly expect us to forgive them.

God is calling us to love our neighbors, all of them. Even the ones who have hurt us. Even the ones who did terrible things. Even the ones we disagree with. Loving them doesn’t have to mean we spend time with them. Loving them doesn’t mean letting them back into our lives to hurt us again. Loving them means you don’t wish ill for them. Loving them means forgiving them. Forgiving them isn't about condoning someone's actions or saying "it's okay." It's about releasing the burden of resentment and anger, and entrusting the consequences of their actions to God. It's a decision within you to let go, not a declaration that their actions were acceptable.

If you struggle to forgive someone, I want you to know you are not alone. You don’t have to do it alone either. If you struggle to forgive someone, bring it to the Lord and ask Him to help you. Ask Him to soften your heart. Forgiving someone is not a feeling; it is a decision. You may decide to forgive someone, yet you might not feel any different. That is OK! If you are willing to say yes to forgiving someone, God will do all the hard work in your heart to help you forgive that person. He just needs your yes and your willingness.

Today’s verse says, “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 found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know when I will come to you.” This verse is telling us to wake up! Sometimes we can go through life on autopilot. That is what the enemy wants. He wants to lull us into a false sense of security. He doesn’t want us to question our behaviors. He doesn’t want us to examine our lives or hearts.

However, the last line in this verse will hopefully give us cause to wake up. It says, “Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know when I will come to you.” None of us is guaranteed tomorrow. We don’t know when we will take our last breath. What if we never get the chance to forgive or love that person? We are called to love everyone. Look at your life, are you doing that? Search your heart, have you said unkind things about people this week? If so, don’t dwell on it, repent, and start over. If there are people you don’t like, ask the Lord to give you his heart for them. If there are people you can’t seem to forgive, or you don’t want to forgive, bring it to the Lord, tell him your struggles, and ask Him for help.

We don’t know when the Lord will come like a thief, and we want to be ready. We want to always be prepared. If today were the last day on earth, would you be ready to go and meet our Heavenly Father? God doesn’t just want us to be good people. He wants us to be good people who love Him with our whole hearts, minds, and souls and who love all of His other children as well. Can we do that? Can we work on that? Can we search our hearts and ask the Lord where we need to work in this area? We can ask God to show us anything that might be blocking us from Him. Anything that might be getting in the way of us going to heaven.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening. Lord, we want to be with you for all of eternity. If something we are doing or something we have deep in our hearts is going to keep us from that time with you, please show us. Lord, it is hard to love others in this crazy world. We all bring our own baggage and our own wounds to the relationship or to the encounter. Please help us to love others like you want us to. Help us to forgive others, not because they deserve it, but because we deserve to be free from the pain, guilt, shame, and anger they have left us with. We love you, Lord, and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

`Friday: Today’s Word from the Lord was received in October 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email [email protected]. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “The time is now for a change in your lives. Come to me. Know that I am ready to help you at all times in your life.”

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