Revelations 3:1-2 “…’I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. “
We begin well, as most do. But today the Lord is asking us what about now? Have we grown weary of being alive and have resigned ourselves to just refresh our outwardly appearances of being so, while quietly withering away on the inside? The scripture convicts us, that’s what the Holy Spirit does, when He says He “knows” our works. His knowing is in the present tense, He says “I know”. What tense are our works of faith in- are they confined to the past, reserved for the future or persevering in the present? The God of the Living is urging us today to be pursuant of our good works without calling it quits and is inviting us to see the fruition of that pursuit (Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”)
In the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation, the address to the seven churches that God dictates to John includes a personal acknowledgment from Him on their current state of affairs and a recommendation that they pull up their socks in working out of His will, having slackened somehow. Again and again the word “overcome” or “conquer” is used for the act of pursuing after His will (Revelation 3:5 “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments,and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”) This suggests that the obedience He expects from us is in itself actually a victory over an unseen obstacle. Somewhere down the line, there is an invisible leg that tries to trip us up, or at the very least slow us down in our race and we need to immediately know that such an impediment is not from God (Galatians 5:7-8 “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you.”)
There are just two parties that are interested in hindering us from doing God’s work persistently. The obvious one, Satan, can impede us from fulfilling our desire to serve God (1 Thessalonians 2:18 “because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us.”) But there is a more subtle ‘somebody’ who can corrupt our godly endeavors, and that is we ourselves in our fleshly nature (Galatians 5:17 “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do”). The fact is, that with either cause, we might be indulging in free falling rebellion or a trickling inhibition from doing what is perfect in the sight of God, both of which are indicators of a toxic spiritual illness. It starts from the deep recesses of our innermost being just like any other deadly disease and is most often so easily masked from the outside by religious behavior. But God is not deceived, He “knows” our hearts and our minds and rewards us according to how we manifest their desires and workings in His sight, not in the sight of the people for whom we throw a theatrical performance every now and then (Jeremiah 17:10 “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”)
The good news is that Jesus Christ our God who Himself saw death and was raised to life has the keys to redeem us from our fatal ways (Revelation 1:18 “and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. “) Even though the Lord calls our bluff in the way we’ve been masquerading our wilting spirits with a ‘churchy’ face, the desire of the Lord is not that we let go altogether, rather that we be reinstated to our former spiritual integrity- something that cannot be achieved by human effort but only by His grace (2 Corinthians 1:12 “ For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God,..”) and to that end He himself prevents our burning out completely (Isaiah 42:3 “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;..”) There is just one test to verify that the circuit of our works in the Kingdom of God is a live one- that any given point of contact our testimony bears evidence of Christ in it (1 John 5:11-12 “ And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. “)
God Bless
bloodvessel 