Friday August 30, 2024
Ephesians 5:14
“Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”
Paul wrote all his letters to believers.
Consequently, this Word, too, is written to believers, although not only to them.
Is it necessary to write to believers: “Awake, you who sleep!”
Yes, otherwise it would not have been written.
Both the Scriptures and experience teach us very clearly that believers can go to sleep very easily and very quickly. Think of the three disciples in the garden of Gethsemane. They went to sleep even though Jesus admonished them very urgently to watch with Him.
Or think of the ten virgins. They all went to sleep. However, five of them were saved because their sleep had not become spiritual death.
Many of God’s children have gone to sleep down through the years.
The sad thing in connection with this is that people go to sleep without knowing it. This is the case also with natural sleep. We are never aware of the exact moment when we go to sleep.
Spiritual sleep, too, comes quietly and unnoticed. The world becomes dear to us, sin becomes innocent and harmless, prayer becomes tedious and a matter of habit.
Lo, sleep has made its quiet advent.
Now, as of yore in Gethsemane, our gracious Savior would awaken His sleeping friends.
He would arouse us to self-examination.
I shall never finish my apprenticeship in the art of proving myself. I know of nothing more edifying than to sit down quietly with tried and tested children of God and confer with them about this aspect of Christianity.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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