Join John and Brandi Belt to be encouraged not to fall asleep in this season.
The Transcription
You tonight, you know, recently the Lord has really been speaking to us about the importance of staying awake. You know, it’s so easy in the midst kind of the stay at home thing we have going on to just kind of sit back and just do nothing. And you know, just become almost complacent and apathetic in your pursuit of God, but He loves us so much. And he’s called us to so much he’s looking for us to constantly be in passionate pursuit of him.
That’s right. The Lord has been really speaking to me about how your spirit can be asleep. You know, we know physically we can be asleep, we can be kind of checked out mentally, but spiritually, you can be asleep, too. And how important it is for us to realize that when Paul’s saying awake of sleeper and rise from the dead, that Christ may shine on me, he’s speaking of a spiritual sleep, that you don’t want to be asleep in your spirit, you want to be awakened to God, you want to be alive to God. And it’s something that we choose to do. It just doesn’t happen. Just because we know Jesus just because we know who he is, and all this kind of stuff. It happens because we make a choice. We want to be spiritually awake, we want to have ears that hear. And we want to have eyes that see. And so the Lord has been really speaking to me how important it is for us to know what time and season that we’re living in right now. And we need to recognize the opportunity that we have, we have lots of opportunities right now God’s getting ready to open up doors, because we’ve been kind of in a quiet season, but that’s going to shift very quickly. And so we need to be ready. And we need to be alert, spiritually awake and ready for the opportunities and not distracted by the things going on in the world not following the news all the time and listening to what the media says and all that kind of stuff. Not listening to the doctor’s report, all this kind of stuff. This is all natural understanding. What we need to tune into is what is God saying right now? What is the spirit saying to the church right now? So and not only the church, but what is God saying to you know, recently, I had a kind of an encounter with God, he was really speaking to me, helping me get some direction that I had really been seeking for a while. And you know, it’s not necessarily direction for the church at large. But it’s personal, it’s direction. For me, it’s clear wisdom and insight on which direction to go.
And God is pouring out revelation right now and just a phenomenal way. But what’s so important is that we take the time to really seek Him for it and spend time with him, right? Because I think a lot of us have gotten to a place where it’s almost our kids, we have two young boys and they kind of get to this place where they’re like, Mom, I’m bored. I’m so bored. There’s a million things to do, but yet they become bored in their mind. And then they just kind of lounge. Right. And I think some of us have started doing a little bit spiritually even where it’s like, oh, you know, when all this happens, let me see what God’s doing. Let me pursue God, let me press in. And then it’s been dragging on for what might feel like an eternity like a long time long enough. It’s plenty, plenty long enough. But you know, five weeks depending on where you are, roughly. And so it’s one of those where a lot of us I think at this point, I’ve gotten to like, Okay, I’m done. And a lot of us have checked out with just the whole thing, including spending that time really seeking the Lord in this season.
So important, keep him first says those who seek the Lord, relax, no good thing. Those who seek His face will act no good thing and you can stand on that promise. In Matthew 633 says, Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto Him as King James Version by the way, Seek ye you seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you know God is faithful. Yeah. And to know His faithfulness, when we seek Him, when we put Him first, he will take care of the rest. We just do our best.
Definitely. And not only that, but Paul talks about, I believe it’s Galatians might be Ephesians. But where he says, Do not grow weary in well doing, you know, and it’s so good right now, to not grow weary. It’s so critical, really, because I think a lot of us are in a season and a time of preparation, where God is getting us ready to carry the weight of the glory in the next season. But if we can’t handle what we’ve got right now, how are we going to handle more right? And so it’s interesting, our kids have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia series and we have just finished the first book together as a group and toward the end. You know, if you know anything about it, there’s the uncle Andrew and he’s all all the other people in it are so excited because as land who is a representation of the Lord is talking and there I’ll just amaze that. Here’s this line that talks. And it talks about how uncle Andrew dulls himself to the sound of the lion. Because he doesn’t want to think it’s real what what is being said. And so later on, the kids are trying to get Aslan to help Uncle Andrew hear his voice again. He says I can’t, because he doesn’t want to hear my voice. And I know that some of us might think, oh, no, I’m not that extreme. I’m not there. But I think a lot of people have gotten to a point where maybe God’s been speaking to you about certain things that you’ve just said, God, I don’t want to hear that anymore. I don’t want to deal with that right now. I don’t want to have to deal with certain issues or things. And it’s like, we have dulled ourselves, and we have desensitized ourselves to what the Holy Spirit is trying to do. And so it’s so critical. You know, when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, He tells his disciples what stay awake and watch. And yeah, they couldn’t stay awake for an hour.
And that’s amazing to me. Because usually, it’s the simplest things that we overlook. It’s the simplest things that we forget. Just like Jesus said, just stay awake. Jesus said, the work of God is this, to believe in the one he has said. So just to live by faith is what God wants us to do. He doesn’t want us to live by a list. He doesn’t want us to live by everything we know and our understanding and all this kind of stuff. He wants us to live by faith and belief in Him to really believe he is who he says he is, and that he’s faithful, and that he will do what he said he would do.
And he is, you know, you are called to do exploits. But you have to first know God. And then you have to trust Him and obey Him really, knowing he is who he says he is, and he loves you the way he does. So we would love to just pray with you this evening. Just pray that God would re sensitize you if any area has become desensitized, and that he would really help you to stay awake during this season.
So Father, we just thank you for your spirit. We thank you for your grace. Lord Jesus, we live by the grace of your spirit and by by faith in You, Lord Jesus, and we thank you for the spirit awakening as Lord and we say yes to that we say Holy Spirit, awaken us. open up our eyes, open up our ears, to hear your voice, and not to be pulled away by wrong voices by deceiving voices but Father that we hear only your voice we follow only your voice, Lord Jesus that we trust in you with our whole heart, Lord, that we have a whole devotion today and the name of Jesus Father, we release Grace and peace to your people, Lord.
Yes, Lord. Thank you, Gabby, thank you for just shaking people awake that need awakened, Lord, that any areas that we become apathetic or complacent in our pursuit of you, Father, we just ask that you would just shake us awake, Lord, those areas that we have decided it’s okay to kind of numb and binge on things that don’t matter. God help us to begin believing in you believing you are who you’ve said you are. And Lord that you’ve called us to bring glory and honor to your name. You’ve called us to not only pursue you but then go go go to work, go to work, bring glory and honor to your name. And so Father, we just thank you right now today, Lord, that everybody in the sound of our voice God would just be reignited with a passion and a hunger to seek your face. Lord, we thank you that while the Coronavirus, you know, is winding down and while it’s time for us to begin kind of getting back out of our house and we can praise you all day for that. But Lord, we thank you that in the midst of kind of reawakening in the natural Lord that we would be reawakened in the Spirit and we wouldn’t become so consumed with the transition back into reality, if you will, that we have stopped seeking you.
Yes, Father, we just thank you for the decline. The decline of this Coronavirus. Yeah, man, Jesus and we all just come to an agreement right now. Every one of you come to agreements with us. We just speak to Coronavirus. We say you are dead, your destroy your God. In Jesus name. You have no authority in God’s people. You have no authority in this nation in the name of Jesus. And we use the authority of Jesus name by the power of his name. We have authority over that. And we just break the power of it in Jesus name, Amen.