Thinking today on a phrase in the first few verses of First Thessalonians 5, where the Apostle Paul is teaching about 'the day of the Lord,' that it will come just like a thief in the night when unsuspecting people are caught off guard. The unsuspecting are those who are separated from God, those who live in an immoral state of mind, those who walk in darkness. In contrast, believers in Jesus Christ know that He will someday return, and they are to be ever-watchful. The phrase that I'm pondering is in verse 6, so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.
I think about ways that I sleep spiritually and am caught off guard. I get lulled to sleep by the culture, and like the proverbial frog in hot water, I'm not alert and aware of the dulling of my spiritual senses. I have to ask myself if I'm becoming desensitized to the world's philosophies, to its explanation of what life is about, to the world's intoxication with pleasure, to its worship of everything that replaces God Himself. It's easy to do when we walk in ungodly counsel or when we sit in camaraderie with those who scoff at God.
Not long ago I was in a waiting room where the television was tuned to the Ellen show. (I've switched doctors twice over TV issues.) The talk was crude, immoral, scoffing. I wasn't there but a few minutes before I got up to ask the receptionist if the TV could be turned off or the channel changed (I was the only one there). Just at that moment I was called to the back, and when I mentioned my exasperation at having to listen to such talk while I was waiting for the doctor, the nurse just commented that yes, Ellen can get a bit wild at times. It didn't seem to encroach on her sense of decency or morality at all. One of the reasons I rarely watch television or Hollywood movies is because of the influence it has in my heart and mind. I'm alert to that.
It takes small slips to shift our culture to the spiritual state that it's in today. Small, barely noticeable slips--to those who are lulled to sleep, to those who are not alert and watchful. Through the Apostle Paul, God tells us to be alert and sober. When we're sober, we're not embracing the culture nor imbibing in its worldliness. When we're sober, we're not being influenced by nor controlled by ostentatious philosophies. Instead, when we're sober we're filling our minds with God's Word and His Ways. We're to be controlled by the Spirit of God, not the spirit of this world.
So I must ask myself - who or what is influencing my mind? What do I give my mind over to? Am I expectant of Christ's return each day? Do I stay sober? Do I remain alert?
Upon occasion a cloud will look just as I imagine it might look when it's time for the Lord Jesus to return on a cloud with great power and glory. It's at those moments that the expectant hope swells up within me. I want to be ever-expectant, ever-alert, ever-sober. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!
Painting ~ Asleep in the Woods, Arthur Hughes 1832-1915
WikiArt public domain
WikiArt public domain
