Sleeper, Wake up!

In his song Wake Up Sleeper, American gospel singer Austin French sings about how he was a sleeper who was woken up by Christ and enjoying his freedom in him. He also encourages us to wake those still sleeping by telling them about the Savior. I love the chorus of this song, “Wake up sleeper, open your eyes. Oh, sinner, arise, leave your past at the door. Wake up sleeper: come to the light, Christ is alive, death doesn’t live here anymore.” This song is marvelous as it calls us all to come to Christ and not let sin or the past hold us back from waking up and following Him. It is a wake-up call for Christians everywhere to rise and shine and let Christ shine through them. God has called us to make the most out of every opportunity by doing the miraculous through the supernatural power given by God. It is time to respond, act, and wake up.

The apostle Paul is constantly exhorting churches to wake up. He tells the Roman congregation in Romans 13:11, “The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” He charges the Corinthians to wake up unto righteousness and the Thessalonians to be alert in 1 Thessalonians 5:6, “Let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert.” To the Ephesians Church, “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you,”(Ephesians 5:14). Paul recognized that the believer can sleep spiritually. He calls us to be awake and alert.

God has called us to go and make disciples of all nations. If we expect the current generation to know Christ, we have to wake up and spread the good news of Christ. We must get up and represent him with passionate hearts. We need to stop being lazy, wake up, and do kingdom business in a way that reveals  Christ in our lives. It is not the time to say that others will do the work while you rest. It is an opportunity for all of us to take responsibility, get inspired by God’s word, and take the initiative to exploit the darkness and bring in the light of Christ. In Isaiah 60:1, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. In asking us to arise, we need to shine for the light that Christ has come to us.

On the Mount of Transfiguration, disciples went with Jesus and slept instead of praying. The three disciples were privileged to have been in the upper room with Christ and with him in the garden. Jesus told them of the danger and asked them to watch and pray, but off to sleep, they went. Having been admitted to the most sacred spot on earth, they saw the holy place where Jesus poured out his soul in prayer; his sweat was as it were drops of blood, but they slept, and even when he tried to awaken them, they still went back to sleep. Still, our Lord made excuses for them, as he makes excuses for most of us. I desire that the Christians will wake and be ready to wake those who do not know Christ and also to awaken those who know him but are lagging.