“Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” (Ephesians 5:14 NLT)
The sun rose and we woke up. But we did more than just wake up, we got up. We left our little piece of Heaven to help others find God. I know in this weather, it’s so much nicer to cuddle up under the covers like a puppy and bear hug your pillows. But yall answered the call to serve!
Let’s think of this service as a privilege instead of just a duty. We were chosen to be here and wake up the rest of the Church. They had a long week just like us, dealing with ice and slush and power outages. Like us, they’d rather stay in bed and watch random TikTok videos—I mean, the Church livestream! Right, right. And just like us, they need to awaken and get up from the dead.
So what we’re doing today is shining the Light on our brothers and sisters out there. They’re not an audience, because an audience just hears. They’re the congregation, the ones gathered to worship God with us. And even if their eyelids are heavy and they’re yawning like dogs, its our job to wake them up to the love of Jesus.
I want to encourage yall to chug that coffee if you have to, down those energy drinks. Diet Coke is good too! Just wake up and be lively on and off the stage so the people out there, especially the lost who are visiting us, can wake up to the joy that’s in Christ. Because if they see zombies—or worse, if they see one thing onstage but close-up see another, they’ll think our God’s as dead as any other diety.
But our God lives. His Son did die, but he rose again. And in his resurrection, we were also made alive with him (Colossians 2:12). So I encourage you to be awake and alive in front and behind the scenes. That’s what integrity is, one of our core values. We need it so like how Peter wrote:
“If people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.” (1 Peter 3:16 NLT)
A contemporary log of fragmentary pleasures 