“Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.” Mark 13:33
March 10, 2025
A time change, as we have recently experienced, can be a challenge to needed sleep. Four times in Mark 13:32-37 Jesus tells His disciples to “stay awake.” He used a parable about an absent house owner to call believers to watchfulness as the way to be prepared for Christ’s Second Coming. There is the danger of becoming intoxicated with the spirit of the age and not taking God seriously. There is the danger of becoming complacent and careless in the seasons of life. In our youth we can live as if there is no tomorrow. It’s easy to get wrapped up in ourselves, in our dreams about marriage, education, date life, clothes, travel, sports. In the summer of life there is work, family, bills, attending our children’s sporting events, buying and maintaining a house. In the autumn of life the empty nest, children getting married, special efforts to push back against bodily aging changes. In the winter of life retirement, trips to the doctor, the enjoyment of grandchildren, failing health can keep us blinded to the reality of having to answer to God for ignoring what it means to have known Jesus Christ and living to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The time changes of life can make us sleep through what it means to live for Christ. Are you awake?
H
“The great need of today is more men (and women) who are fearless in their condemnation of evil, who believe in a frank exposure of the faults that lie about us.” Vance Havner