Waking up Dead

It's _____ o'clock in the morning and your alarm goes off. It's time to get up and spend some time with God in prayer and reading the Bible. But, you've had a rough night. Your kids woke up in the middle of the night or you ate that certain something you shouldn't have after 8 pm and it kept you up all night (wow I'm actually old enough to know about that). And what do you do? You set your alarm for one hour later so you can get up and go to work. Clearly the thing you need now is sleep.

You wake up, get dressed and head off to work. Then you see your co-worker who is going through a tough time. But, you don't have time for that. You've got work to do and you want to surf the Internet for a new ____ to buy. Clearly that new _____ is what you need right now. You don't have time to hear their problems and offer them the hope that is in the gospel. Not thinking of all those times you've needed someone to talk to about your own problems.

Before you know it, the work day is done and you purchased your item. You head to your car in the rain and as you drive home you see a stranded motorist. You don't think to stop. Your family is waiting for you or maybe you're really hungry and besides you don't want to get wet. You pass buy thinking, "Surely someone else will stop."

I think you get the picture by now. The day is being lived for whom? That is a question that is coming to my mind when I lie down at night and the day is spent. My day was lived for whom? And most days, I have to admit I want to have that question in my mind at the very beginning of the day because I've lived it selfishly for myself.

Whom will I live for today?

We are called by Christ to die to ourselves daily. Many times I wake up in the morning and I see my alarm as a nuisance. Rather, I should see it as a bugle call to war—A war against my flesh, the devil and this world. And yet, most mornings I treat it lightly.

The call goes out to me, and I snuff it with the snooze. I ignore the scriptures about bearing one another's burdens or helping those in distress or loving my neighbor as myself etc., etc., and I live my life for myself.

So, what is the exhortation here? For us to wake up already dead. Dead to self that is. Then God can use us as we were intended to be used since the time Christ purchased us—as servants of God. Then, we'll see the hand of God in the world, we'll see God change people's lives. We'll see God change our lives and we'll know God more. If we wake up dead, we'll see true life.

So, it's _____ o'clock in the morning and our alarm goes off...Do we wake up dead?