A Wake-up Call from Jesus Christ
By Alexandra Copeland
Jesus Christ has never spoken
words that we didn’t desperately need to hear. Our Lord and
Master is the way, the truth, and the life. He desires that
we follow in his footsteps and take heed to his
instructions, because his way is the only way to have a
relationship with God, so that we can live a quality life.
In Revelation 3:2(NLT), he tells us to
“Wake up! Strengthen
what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I
find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my
God.” We should know beyond any uncertainty that this is
what we need to do. He’s given us a wake-up call because he
knows how easy it is for us to slip back into old habit
patterns, to begin to think and behave as we did before we
came to know him as our Redeemer and Lord. This can happen
without our realizing it, and it is a huge problem when it
comes to being in alignment with God’s plan.
Knowledge of God’s plan is fuel
for the engine of our lives. Without it, we just don’t run
effectively. Included in His plan is every individual’s
specialized and unique destiny. No two are exactly alike,
and this within itself conveys the brilliant, overwhelming
intelligence and specificity of our Heavenly Father. The
scriptures tell us that His Will for each of us is nothing
short of glorious. This makes perfect sense, because He is a
glorious God!
In Jeremiah 29:11(NLT), He tells
us, “For I know the
plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for
good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”
In 3John 1:2, through the Apostle John, again God expresses
His desire for our excellent well-being. He wants us to be
continually in good health and prosperity. Jesus Christ
declares the good news in John 10:10 by telling us that
Heavenly Father sent him to the earth to make a more than
abundant life available to every living human being. We can
clearly see through His Word that God has given us the best,
and He wants us to realize it. He’s placed the best within
us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Because of our Lord’s
sacrifice, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling
within. This is all a part of God’s extraordinary plan for
us, that we each walk in all that He’s provided and live the
best life of which we are capable of living.
Heavenly Father left no detail
undone. Our destiny is to walk in spiritual abundance and
prosperity. This is the life He has called us to, but not
all of us will live this kind of life. Many of us live
beneath our privilege as God’s sons and daughters. The
biggest reason for this is that we are not convinced of
God’s unconditional love, and we’re not fully persuaded when
it comes to our destiny within His plan. We are falling
asleep on our job as ambassadors for Christ because we think
the world can fulfill our dreams and make us feel whole and
complete. It can’t.
Jesus Christ wants us to come
into consciousness about the decisions and choices we make
from one day to the next. God tells us in 1Peter 1:16 that
we must be holy because He is holy. To be holy is to be set
apart. We’re a different kind of people, set apart for God’s
particular purpose. He tells us in Romans 12:2 not to be
conformed to this world, but to pack His Word into our minds
and hearts, so that we begin to think differently than we
used to. He tells us that the Holy Spirit will do a work on
the inside of us, as we put on more and more of His Word.
The truth is that we put up quite
a bit of resistance against this work, and it’s one of the
reasons that Jesus Christ gives us such a stern warning in
Revelation 3:2. One of the ways that we resist is by
thinking that the way in which God is telling us to live is
complicated, that is it too hard for us to do. Many people
believe that they will have to give up something pleasurable
and useful, and be left with something less comparable in
its place. This is not the truth. It is one of the lies that
the enemy has perpetuated by making what the world offers
look so alluring. In truth, the world only offers a lie,
because it is under the dominion of the devil; therefore,
the world can never offer us the best.
1Peter 5:8-9(NLT) tells us,
“8 Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He
prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to
devour. 9 Stand firm against him, and be strong in your
faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all
over the world are going through the same kind of suffering
you are.” Day after day, our extraordinarily loving and
all-powerful Father sees millions of people lose their lives
over what is not true and real, all because they make the
wrong decisions and choices. They chose the world over His
love, and God will not overstep their free-will choices.
They give their souls to the devil and allow him to
tantalize and bombard their senses, to the point that they
are blinded by darkness and ignorance. They cannot recognize
what is real, and they are bamboozled out of their destinies
by his tricks. We must not allow this to happen in our
lives.
The only way to stand firm is to
be strong in the Word that we have been taught. Spiritual
intelligence is the greatest weapon that God has provided.
To be seasoned in the wisdom of His Word is to be smart on a
whole other level. It is to be confident in the Spirit’s
sword, the Word of God; the truth. If we resist putting on
the truth, we are in effect resisting the help of the
indwelling Holy Spirit. This resistance against the truth is
what gives the enemy a foot-hole into our lives.
Everyone knows that a country
with a strong government will be protected by a strong
military. One of the chief building blocks of a strong
military is a well-informed intelligence agency; one that is
always a few steps ahead of any enemies. If, by chance,
surveillance is weakened and the walls of a country’s
protection are breached, it will most likely be blamed on a
failure in intelligence. Information about the enemy’s spies
or tactics was available, but those that were on the front
lines either did not know it, ignored it, or they allowed it
to be stolen from them. The Word of God is life! We need to
know it so that we continue to walk in destiny and receive
all that God has in store for us.
Do not allow satan to blind you
from your destiny. There is much for you to know about the
path that God has laid before you. It is not difficult.
Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 11:30 that his yoke is easy
to bear, and the burden he gives us is light. He’s our Lord,
and he wants us to live a spiritual life, one where we walk
by the Spirit. You and I don’t do the heavy lifting, we’re
not doing the work; it’s the Spirit of the Living God that
does it. Jesus Christ warns us to wake up to what the Spirit
is doing, and to come alive to those spiritual practices
that keep us continually growing in our relationship with
God. When we make this our focus, we will continually
witness the glory of our destinies beautifully unfold. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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