Revelation 3:2

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2 Be [ginomai] watchful, [gregoreuo] and [kai] strengthen [sterizo] the things which remain, [loipoy] that [hos] are [mello] ready to die: [apothnesko] for [gar] I have [heurisko] not [ou] found [heurisko] thy [sou] works [ergon] perfect [pleroo] before [enopion] God. [theos]    KJV-Interlinear

2 'Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.    NASB

Wake up, be watchful, means to be vigilant or to resume your vigilance, be alert, recover your alertness.  The Christians has fallen away (died) to their spiritual functions in life. They were behaving just like unbelievers, imitating them in their patterns of life.

Wake up, get back into fellowship.   Christ is addressing believers remember.This is not an appeal for them to believe in Christ all over again.We believe once in our life and that is sufficient to have salvation.  Once saved always saved.

So their problem is not salvation, but fellowship.  Their attitude toward Bible doctrine is found wanting.Lacking substance they are mere shadows and have no staying power in life.  Their works are hollow, empty.  They may be doing good deeds but they are selfish deeds without true charity of soul.Their deeds are from their self righteousness and not from Gods righteousness. 

Their prayer is empty, without holiness.  Any prayer offered while out of fellowship is worthless and is not heard.The only exception is the confession prayer where God then restores you into fellowship and thus you become powerful, but not from your own strength, but from Gods strength.Their inward affections do not match their outward acts.They may be saying and doing the right things, but their motivations are not from Bible doctrine, they are from the sin nature.

God examines the soul and by this, evaluates the person.Your soul is the key to your life.

What is in your soul?  Bible doctrine or just earthly academic data, earthly philosophies, rational or logic thought processes. 

Though you may know a lot, you really know nothing. Without doctrine, there remains no frame of reference with which to apply your knowledge.Therefore all your earthly production is wood, hay, and stubble.  Those are the things which God will burn away at the Judgment Seat of Christ. They have no value and no future.

So, wake up, is the call.  Confess your sins and resume your spiritual life.And remain awake (study) in your attitude toward Bible doctrine.  Wake up and conduct yourself responsibly in life by following a regimented daily Bible study.Follow a regular review process of your own life, by evaluating yourself with regard to sin and your attitude toward God and your Bible study.  Keep yourself in fellowship (confess), study, learn, apply, and do it all over again throughout the day, throughout your life.

God looks not for the actions that any person can perform, He looks for the foundation upon which those actions are based. 

God looked at the Sardinians and found them lacking in the things which they should have had, in order to receive a proper evaluation.They lacked spiritual progress.God uses prepared believers.He promotes and blesses them, based on the doctrine they have accumulated in their souls and based on the usefulness of that doctrine which they have applied in their life.

So, are you positive toward Bible doctrine?   Do you evaluate yourself constantly in order to maintain your fellowship status with God?  Or, are you asleep (dead) with regard to Bible doctrine?

Then wake up, get back with your study program and re-strengthen the things you once knew.  Don't let what you know now, die out (fade away as forgotten) on you.If you get away from doctrine for short periods, you will have a tendency to forget some things, but you will remember most of what you have learned.  But, if you get away from Bible doctrine for an extended period of time, then you will forget more and more. And sooner or later you will forget everything you once knew. 

So, do not risk losing it all.  The more you lose, the more difficult it is to recover in your spiritual life.

An adult person cannot return to his infant state.Well perhaps a person can become immature and act childish again in life.  An older person can get really helpless and childlike. 

So it is with your spiritual life.  You can return to spiritual infancy and have to re-learn everything you once knew.  Re-learning takes time and you have to go through your growing up process all over again.This is not worth the trouble, so stick with your current study and do not fall back or lose ground in your spiritual life.

Those in Sardis forgot their Bible study and were at risk of losing all they had learned.  This in turn causes them to lose out on the rewards and crowns and blessings, they had gained to their own account for eternity.  This also, caused them to have to go through the growing up process again, to re-build their faith, to recover the spiritual life they once had.

Time is short, and Christ will emphasize this in the next verse.We have already seen the warning from chapter 1, Christ's hand is on the lever of human history.Do you remember that study?

And history, or even your own physical life is hanging in the balance.  Do not waste time in this life. And certainly do not lose ground through indifference or laziness in your studies.

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