SEDUCED by COMPLACENCY

Spiritual awakening begins first with WAKING UP!
(An excerpt from weekend sermon at Lifehouse Church)

My youngest daughter used to wake me up at ungodly hours by joyously screaming in my ear, "Daddy! Daddy!" and slapping my rapidly in the face. Trust me, it woke me up and got my attention!

All of us get comfortable and complacent. Life has a way of lulling us to sleep spiritually and causing us to dull our spiritual senses and drown out our cry for God.

Joel 3:14, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision."

Like these Jewish nation in the time of the prophet Joel, I’ve felt Complacency’s dark figure lurking in the shadows of my heart, whispering with seductive appeal.

I’ve heard Lethargy's comforting song of self-satisfying desires of lust, greed, indulgence, and gluttony.

I’ve felt the brush of Apathy's sleep-inducing touch of self-numbing sins called laziness, prayerlessness, slumber, recreation, and easy-living.

Complacency has told me that my faith is a burden and church is a chore.

Lethargy's whispers have turned violent, as her slumber gripped me with militant tactics- stalking my every spiritual attempt and subverting my spiritual hunger and passion.

Apathy speaks convincingly the dark lies of easy-living, “Why bother? It will cost to much?"

She tells me, "God just wants too much? And it won’t even matter? You’re too weak or too strong. Your too insecure, too ugly, too skinny or too fat. Your too dumb to help or too smart, so why not use your brains elsewhere. You’ll fail so don’t try. You’ll succeed, so take your talents elsewhere where you can be rewarded more noticeably."

She taunts, "People will mock you or laugh at you, are even worse, people won’t care at all."

During times of complacency, inevitably things go wrong.

Like an alarm clock in the night, tragedy, pain, a death, a scare, failure, demotion. They all have a way of challenging us to change How far must God go in getting your attention? If God has to choose between your eternal safety and your earthly comfort, which do you hope he chooses? AWAKENING!

I'm calling us to PERSONAL and CHURCH-WIDE AWAKENING!

Joel 2:1, "Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill."

You and me- we’ve screamed at Lethargy's whispers. We’ve grabbed the wrist of Apathy's seductive, comforting touch, and demanded, “NO MORE!”

See, We’re done with easy, comfortable living! We want more from life, faith!

We DON’T want our life to be about "ME." We’re done with ease, comfort, and over-stuffed appetites.

We're TIRED of sitting on the SIDELINES while others live relentlessly their faith in God.

• Let's choose ANONIMOTY to make GOD'S NAME FAMOUS.  
• Let's choose PERSONAL LOSS so some may GAIN CHRIST. 
• Let's choose to GIVE ALL so that SOME MAY BE SAVED. 
• Let's choose RIDICULE so that SOME MAY know CHRIST’S LOVE. 
• Let's choose TEARS so that others may know JOY. 

 Don’t sit on the sidelines. In the short term we may regret what we have done. But in the long run, we will regret what we didn’t do, the risks we didn’t take.