Staying Awake...

In a recent post I asked, in the American context (padded by comfort, safety and security) "how can we stay awake?" We need to stay alert, even though (or rather, especially because) the Lord tarries (for millennia) and the world goes on as it always has... (2Pe.3:1-15a).

I came across 1Th.5:6 this morning: "So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled." The context is the coming Day of the Lord (5:1-11), in which "sudden destruction" will come upon the world (5:3), though we will escape God's wrath and "obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," (5:9). With this hope we are to encourage each other and build one another up (5:11).

The call to sobriety and alertness is familiar in the New Testament (e.g., 1Pe.5:8; 2Ti.4:5; Eph.6:18; Col.4:2; 1Co.16:13; cf. 15:34; Ro.13:11; Eph.5:6-18). And this call is most typically found within an eschatological or apocalyptic context (see, for example, Mt.24:42-43; Mk.13:33-37; Lk.21:36), as we see in 1Th.5:1ff.

This is also the case in Peter's first epistle (e.g., 4:7, note also the close connection between alertness and prayer). In 1:13, Peter writes, "Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed."

Here is the challenge: setting our hope fully on the revelation of Jesus Christ in glory, when we too will be glorified with him (1:3-7).

In what are we putting our hope? Do we believe in his coming, or have we become effectively cynics with the world (2Pe.3:4)? Do we long for his return, or have we become content with a kingdom without God? Do we hasten the day of the Lord, or have we exchanged that hope for another tomorrow?

To stay awake, then, we must, at least, positively, be "looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." (Something I frankly do not regularly do).

How do we do this? How do we "long for his appearing"? Are our affections set fully on Jesus Christ, his glory, and its full manifestation in the last day? Where are our hearts? This, then, is issue. Staying awake is really a call to find our joy and our hope in the only truly satisfying source there is: the grace and glory of Jesus Christ. It is a call to be "filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy," 1Pe.1:8. Odd how we turn this into a burdensome duty and source of guilt, isn't it?

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be sober-minded; set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ!