Living on Yesterday’s Faith

Verse of the week

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.

Jesus calls us to receive and obey the gospel we can become accustomed to remembering.

You can tell the story so easily now. There was a season when prayer mattered to you, when Scripture seemed to meet you in the middle of the day, when following Jesus meant making a decision you could not take back. You are grateful for that season. Other people remember it too.

But if someone asked what depending on Jesus looks like this week, would the answer be as easy? Memories can encourage faith. They can also become a way of avoiding that question. We describe who we used to be and assume the description still fits.

Jesus tells the church in Sardis that it has a reputation for being alive, but it is dead. That judgment is sobering. The people who thought well of this congregation could not see everything Jesus saw. A church can keep functioning while losing the dependence on God that its activity is supposed to express.

We can do that as individuals too. We know the songs and the answers. People know where we serve. Nobody would think to ask whether we actually pray before making a decision, or whether we have any intention of obeying the passage we just discussed.

Jesus tells Sardis to wake up and strengthen what remains. He directs them back to what they received and heard, and calls them to hold it fast and repent. He addresses them urgently. Their reputation cannot make it safe to put him off.

What they received includes the good news of Jesus himself. Revelation has already praised him for loving us and freeing us from our sins by his blood. We can become very familiar with those words while trying to get through our days on our own competence. Returning to them means acknowledging our need for the Savior they announce.

You do not have to produce a convincing account of your spiritual life before you come to Christ. You can tell him where your public reputation and your private habits have parted company. You can confess the sin you now discuss more readily than you resist. His call to repentance gives you something to do with that honesty.

Read Revelation 3:1–6 slowly today. Ask which part of Jesus’ warning you are tempted to apply only to someone else. Then choose one response that belongs to your present life. Make the apology. Return to the prayer you abandoned. Ask a trusted believer to help you face what you have been avoiding.

Do not measure that response by whether it recreates the feelings of an earlier season. Attend to the Lord who is speaking now. He promises to acknowledge his faithful people before his Father. Your hope is in being known by him. You can thank him for yesterday’s grace while asking for the grace to hear and obey him today.