Wake up! The hour is near

1 Peter 4:7

 
By Leo Sekoere
One of the many awesome things about Jesus is His sense of time. He lived in constant consciousness of divine timing. He often broke away from natural timeframes to allude to time in the future but unlike the prophets of old, He lived in the future and in the present and the past all at the same time, knowing the exact moment when the prophecies and the actualization of the prophecies would coexist. My head hurts just thinking about it.

All the prophesies about what He was born to do were released and He knew the exact time of fulfilment. In John 2:1-4 Jesus makes reference to His “Hour”, a point in time where the people would see the fulfilment of those prophesies and if we look throughout the gospel of John we see the phrase “His hour had not yet come”. This hour was already existing in the spiritual realm and even though Jesus lived in the world He knew that a time is coming where spiritual timing will concur with timing that is in the natural. In John 12:27 we see a build-up of internal and external pressure leading up to the anticipated “hour” explained in John 13: 1. I want us to focus on the perfectly strategic preparation for the hour. Jesus prepared everyone around Him and also Himself (by teaching, equipping and praying) for the “Hour”.

Can you imagine how different our experience of the word of God would be if Jesus lived in oblivion and His crucifixion came at a time unexpected by Him? Think about it, If Jesus didn’t live awake to His “hour”, there would be no proper preparation, no proper praying, equipping and teaching. I remember meditating on time and realizing that it is important to be in sync with spiritual time because everything that happens is dependent on spiritual timing.

Sadly Jesus’ disciples were totally oblivious to the “hour”, I suggest that this could be attribute to the fact that they had not yet been introduced to life in the Spirit (I will explain this part some other time-let me not digress). In Matthew 26:40 we see Jesus under immense internal pressure, the “hour” was at hand but His disciples failed to recognize the weightiness of the moment. The bible tells us that Jesus woke them up several times warning them and advising them to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation, yet they stayed asleep. I often ask myself how the story would’ve turned out had Peter, James and John just stayed awake and prayed about what was going to transpire. The death of Jesus left them scared, traumatized and weakened against temptation because they fell asleep. Do you know that while we sleep we often lose our sense of time? Have you ever woke up in the morning and thought that it was still night?

Look up the word “asleep” and you will see the following definitions
1. Not attentive or alert
2. Inactive
3. Having no feeling, numb
4. Dead

Sadly, that’s the condition most of you find yourselves in. Jesus prepared you for your “hour” it is well on its way but you have fallen asleep. You need to wake up! Otherwise the “hour” will find you resting and you might be destroyed by the pressure that comes with the “hour”. The devil is stealing our minds and our attention, he is lulling us to sleep. Recognize his devices and wake up oh sleeper. I call all the remnants to pray for the children of God who have fallen asleep. Make mention of them in your prayers, The hour is near!