To the Church in Sardis

"To the angel[a] of the church in Sardis write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits[b] of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.  The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches."

I am about to expose this passage to the local church on Sunday and I am reading it, trying to go to a deeper understanding of the message within it, and how to interpret it. Praying that the Holy Spirit will reveal to me not just the correct understanding of the passage but that He may work in me to transform my understanding and make me a useful instrument to transmit it to the audience.

There are a few different views of these chapters to the 7 churches, in terms of who are this churches today and what do they mean to us. I believe each church mentioned here are somewhat related to the actual spiritual state of the Church in the world. And as I can identify myself with some during different stages in my life and the inconsistency we as humans reflect, I do believe the Church all around the world to be found in one of these spiritual situations.

What all the messages have in common is the sender and the way He introduces Himself, as the one who knows all things and is above anything, thus with all the authority to judge and sentence over any people. It doesn't end there, but Christ includes in every message a calling and a promise. God is a God of opportunities and full of grace.

This particular passage is pointed to the church of Sardis, a church as many churches out there today, apparently living, but spiritually in the deathbed.  We can call it a religious church, a church that preaches one thing and does another, a church that has fallen into hypocrisy, thus a church without the power of Christ.

Christ in His grace is sending out a wakeup call, showing on one side His amazing grace and on the other side the power of will that God in His sovereignty decided to give to all men.

"Wake up!" How many times I found myself asleep to reality and how precious is when you have someone to shakes you up from time to time to make you see things you don't see maybe blinded by the temporary situation you live in, believing the lies of the enemy and you find yourself in a dead-end.

Don't ignore the call before it's too late. I believe in the security of salvation, but I think that what here the passage is referring to when saying "strengthen what remains and it's about to die" is the short life we have here on earth, and the decisions we have to make that impact our eternity. Life is too short, we are too slow and time flies, we need to take decisions for eternity each day, invest in what's eternal.

We have heard the word of God, our conscience is being moved by the Holy Spirit and we recognize what needs to be changed in our lives, let's not ignore the call and the opportunity, we have to act NOW. And that takes us to repentance, recognizing that God was right and we were wrong and center ourselves to His will.

We sometimes generalize, so if I am spiritually weak, and the church, in general, is too, the loved ones and people surrounding us are not very spiritual, we tend to be tolerant and get cold, just accept our situation and conform ourselves.

But, there is always somebody spiritual, somebody who we can rely on or search for advice. We need good companionships, and we shouldn't look for them outside of the Church. We need each other and God in His grace established it this way. We need each other to help us get closer to God.

The benefits are huge, we are called worthy and victorious not when we do something by ourselves, but when we cast out our own will and trust Him, as we did in the moment we repented of our sins and we found Salvation in Christ. The same applies to all our daily walk in the Lord, as we came to know Him we must walk in Him.

God always wants the best for us. Sin makes us think that we are missing so much pleasure, opportunities, and riches. But let me tell you, my friend, that just takes to more slavery and constant unsatisfaction,  always wanting more, and more, and never get enough.

Let us all trust the Creator, the Sustainer of all things, the Savior, the Father, the Mighty King that rules over all things.

It's never late to come back to repentance and restoration.

May the glory be to God the Father for Christ, trough the Holy Spirit.

With love,
Tiby