Proverbs 6:9. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
I don’t know about you, but I sure do like to sleep. Why even this morning I had a hard time getting out of bed. Like every good gift from God, and sleep is a very good gift, we can abuse it and turn it into something harmful rather than helpful. Yes, it is quite true that we can overwork. But it is also quite true that we can underwork. Rest is important to God. God rested and he commands us to rest. But too much rest is bad for us. We must all find the balance between work and rest.
We can find joy in our work when we come to believe that all work images God. Do you do creative work? Work that brings order? Does your work serve others? Help others? Protect others? Do you work with others in a work place community? If any of these are true, then your work images God and his work.
The sluggard has not found the meaning that comes from hard work. They find no purpose in their work. They avoid hard work and take shortcuts. The sluggard puts off starting projects and fails to finish what they’ve started. Often the sluggard feels entitled and has no idea that they are even a sluggard.
The New Testament warns us about spiritual sloth, of being spiritually asleep.
Romans 13:11. Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
Are you asleep spiritually? Have you drifted into a dazed existence? Have you been hitting the spiritual snooze button over and over?
Christian, our salvation is near. Jesus is coming back for us – soon! So wake up! Get out of bed! Get ready! Don’t be a spiritual sluggard. Jesus wants to do his work in your heart and through your life. He wants to use you today to proclaim and live out the good news. He wants his good work in you to be expressed to everyone around you so that all can see the glory and majesty of the grace of God in and through you and your life. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus says it this way:
Luke 12:35-37. 35“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, 36and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. 37Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.
The Christian is expected to always be ready for Christ’s imminent return. Dressed for action. Lamps burning. Ready to open the door. Serving our Lord, knowing that when he returns THEN we will rest, we will recline at table as our humble Savior serves us.
You: Are you sluggardly? What about spiritually?
You in Christ: God’s work is finished and complete and yet ongoing. How can trusting his finished work allow you to submit to his ongoing work?
Christ in you: What specific work is the Jesus in you trying to accomplish today?
Pray: Father, I know it’s time to wake up. And I know that in Christ you are at work in me and through me. Help me to not “sleep” through what you are doing. Amen.
To Live is Christ 