What do you want out of the New Year? Everyone is looking for something. New opportunities. New sense of purpose. New relationships, or new levels of depth in the relationships they already have.
I think we all want greater clarity on God’s will for our lives, to be a part of something significant and meaningful.
Failing to Follow-Through
Around this time of year everyone is always talking about the goals they have or the vision they want to refine and strategies they plan to implement in order to get the life they want. I have not even began setting goals for this next year. So much happened in 2016 and so much more is already going to happen and change in 2017 that I’m not really sure where to begin.
The thing about goals and New Years resolutions is they are highly emotional. What I mean by that is we feel the urgency of time slipping away. We feel a sense of regret for ways we misused our time in the past and suddenly, because in one moment we start writing a different number after the day of the month, we have a great sense of clarity about what really matters to us, what we really want to do, and what gives us a sense of significance.
So, in a moment of great ambition for bringing about change we declare we are going to exercise more this year or eat less sweets. Maybe some of us get even more righteous and determine to spend more time with family or share more with our friends about God.
Out of fifteen goals I made this last year, I really only completed three of them. Trust me, they were really good goals. I was bound and determined to actually do it when I created them. I was serious about taking each of my sons on a monthly date and leading one person the Lord. But you know, I missed about six months of dates with my sons and never led anyone to Christ.
It’s not that I didn’t try—I did. I talked with people about God, I took my sons on dates six times. But the busyness of life creeps in so quickly, the worries and pressures we succumb to eat out passion for following through on our commitments.
Weak Disciples
I am comforted in my struggle to stay committed in knowing that even the twelve disciples of Jesus struggled to remain committed. As Christ neared the time He would lay down His life, He told the disciples they would fall away. Peter robustly declared, “I will never fall away!” Going as far to say even if he had to die with Christ he would.
We all know the story, though. Later that night he denied Christ three times, wiggling his way out of suffering with Him. Tremendous passion, huh?
Is there any hope for completing what we desire to do? Is there any point in setting goals or clarifying vision? What is it God really wants us to do with our lives, with each New Year?
WAP!
In the Matthew account of the night leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, something happens with His inner circle that I believe reveals what God is calling you and I to right now in 2017.
To be truthful, I didn’t discover this myself. Pastor Merle Flory gave an astounding message during our New Years worship service at IGo Christian Fellowship. I am passing it on to you because it resonated deeply within me, with what God has been laying on my heart. Merle’s message is packed with truth, with God’s desire for workers in His service (and if you have met Christ you are now a worker in His service).
But here’s the thing, so many of us are all into big things for God. We’ll do the big goals. We’ll die with Him. But when it comes to the routine, mundane, day-to-day serving Him, taking up our cross and following Him, we’re not so sure about that. We’re not as ready to commit unless what He is calling us to promises an increased amount of admiration from others.
We all admire martyrs.
Jesus was getting ready to be one, and He called His disciples to prepare with Him.
Late at night before He died, Jesus went to a garden, took his inner circle and walked off some distance to pray. After a bit he came back and found them sleeping. What would you do if you were agonizing over a task that demanded your life, and you took your best friends to go and pray and prepare your hearts and minds for what lied ahead, and while you were sweating blood you discovered your friends had curled up under the trees?
The Bible says Jesus gave them a WAP!
Well, not actually. But what He said to His disciples serves as one.
Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. –Matthew 26:41 ESV
Who Needs WAP
If you want to see great things happen in 2017, and I believe we all do, we need to WAP. The message Christ gave His disciples there in the garden is for us today if we really want to be a part of advancing the glory of God.
If you’re not interested in participating in the resurrection of Christ, then don’t worry about this. Go on living as you are. But if you really want the reward Jesus offers in heaven, if you truly want to experience intimacy and closeness with Father God, what He told His disciples to do is just as important for you to do.
His words are important for all of us who desire His Kingdom built here, right now, this year.
The 2017 Challenge
In this passage, Jesus gives us a challenge, a caution, and then a choice.
The challenge is, watch and pray. That is what Christ is calling us to right now. Hold your pen, don’t write down your goals yet. More important than accomplishing what you think is great is taking time to watch and pray.
Will you take the challenge to Watch And Pray in 2017?
This demands strict alertness. I must make myself stay aware of the surroundings, aware of what is going on around me.
Here in Thailand we have guard posts as we enter our mubans (gated communities). When it’s late at night, more often than not the guard is falling asleep. Chiang Mai isn’t known for criminal activity, but it doesn’t really make me feel very safe knowing our guard is sleeping during the night.
Am I sleeping? As a disciple of Christ I have been given a watch. I have been commissioned to do the work of watching for opportunities to connect broken creation with their Maker. Am I staying alert, or have I fallen asleep?
Perhaps one of the best ways I can know if I have fallen asleep is to ask myself if I knew Jesus was coming back today, is there anything I would want to change right now? If I am not living a life that at any moment Christ could come and I would be ready, with no regrets, to meet Him face-to-face, then I know I am alert. But if there are things I would change, perhaps I have fallen asleep.
There are two scenarios Christ tells us to watch and pray. Both are right before significant tasks, significant events. The first is when He is talking about the end times, when the Son of Man returns and we stand before Him face-to-face (see Mark 13:33 & Luke 21:36). The second is here in the garden before His death. Before He leaves, commissioning us all to go forth and make disciples.
If you and I are going to be ready for when Christ comes again, and if we are going to effectively make disciples, our responsibility is not to have a clear vision and strategic plan, it’s not to have all our ducks in a row and figure out just how and when Christ is going to return. Our responsibility is to watch and pray.
Sometimes we get caught up looking for experiences with Christ. We beg God to show Himself to us and to give us a sense of His presence. It’s almost as if we think being close to Him will help us automatically have power and passion for the things on His heart. But listen, even His closest disciples who ate with Him, traveled with Him, joked with Him, accomplished miracles with Him—even they bailed when things got rough. They fell asleep when they were needed most.
I think the reason the disciples found it hard to watch and pray is because they had an air of self-sufficiency. They were confident they could do this. “We’ll die with you!” They were close to Christ. They saw with their own eyes all the miracles He did. They saw miracles they could do, and trust me, they were pretty excited about the life Jesus was calling them to. I would be if I had been in their shoes.
But living for Christ and doing His work is not something we can do in and of our own strength. That’s why it is important for us to regularly get away, disconnect from the pressures and needs of life as well as the opportunities for good work, and worship.
Let me suggest a few things to watch for and a few ways to pray:
- Watch for godly flocks. Make it a point in 2017 to encourage believers.
- Watch for positive godly leaders (Col. 4:2).
- Watch for godly men everywhere and encourage them (1 Co. 16:13).
- Watch for areas we need repentance in individually and collectively (Rev. 3:3). Where do we need to agree with God and change our attitudes of humanistic thinking, solving issues in our own wisdom?
- Watch for needs in other people’s life
- Watch for personal disciplines in my own life that are slacking. No athlete would expect winning a gold medal without a routine of rigorous exercise and training. More so, spiritual leaders and influencers for Christ need routines of rigorous exercise and training.
- Stop and listen. Don’t talk. Sometimes we think praying is about talking. It’s not. Instead, listen for the Spirit’s voice and write down what God is saying to you.
The 2017 Caution
Christ didn’t just challenge His disciples to watch and pray, but He gave them a caution. He told them to watch and pray, so that they don’t enter into temptation.
Sometimes there is something in me that wants to just flirt with temptation a little bit. I know where the lines are, and I’d never cross them. But sometimes I just want to play with temptation a little. And Jesus says don’t do that!
We need to be alert for the devil who prowls like a lion waiting to pounce. This doesn’t mean focusing on the devil, but watching and praying with Christ. If we’re not watching and praying, he will pounce and we won’t even realize it. We won’t see it coming.
While there are many, let me suggest two temptations we might fall into that we don’t normally think about:
- Good opportunities. Sometimes good things crowd out the best things.
- Misplaced passion. When my passion replaces humility I become feeble and weak—I can do nothing without the power of Christ in me.
The 2017 Choice
Finally, after Christ gave the challenge to watch and pray and the caution not to fall into temptation, He presented them with a choice to walk by the flesh or the Spirit.
Our flesh is sick, powerless, and without the ability to watch and pray. Flesh wants life without God, life easy and self-gratifying. But we are designed for selfish pleasure, but for adding value to others, being a part of reconciling a broken world to its Creator. The Apostle Paul tells us that if we walk by the Spirit we will not gratify the selfish desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).
Because of our fallen nature, what feels natural is to do life without God. As long as we live in this broken world, living by the flesh will feel more natural than living by the Spirit.
I know the Spirit of Christ would not have me sitting around watching movies or surfing the web but engage the people around me, taking relationships deeper then casual activities to more eternal and vulnerable areas so together we can meet Him. But to be honest, I don’t feel like doing that. I come up with all kinds of excuses for waiting, for not being pushy, or for establishing more “friendship.”
Or even more personal, when an advertisement shows up during my web-surfing that offers sexual pleasure, and I’m alone and know nobody else would see me, I almost always feel like checking it out even though I know the Spirit of God would have me flee immediately. In those times when I know what the Spirit would have me do, but I feel too weak to do it, I must cry out within my souls for God’s strength, lean into His grace, and take one step after another in the direction of obedience.
“I will obey, Lord. Please give me power!”
Ready and Waiting
If you want to see great things happen this year, WAP! If you’d rather go ahead and set goals, striving hard for a life you dream of, go for it. But just as the disciples scattered when Christ needed them most, so will you when the hour comes to follow-through. When God does show you His will and the purpose He created you for, you won’t be ready to actually fulfill it, unless you WAP.
Then, and only then, will God work mightily. Remember Christ said we can move mountains? We can do so when we watch and pray, ready in faith for whatever God wants to do in and through us. What could happen to our society if Christians everywhere would watch and pray this year?
I believe God is giving us an opportunity to experience Him in a deeper level. He wants to work revival in the hearts of people around us. He wants to reveal Himself to those who don’t yet know Him. He wants to pour out His love on the nations, but unless we watch and pray, we’ll miss it. He won’t be able to move.
So, let me summarize how to WAP in 2017:
- Look in. What is in my heart? What is my first love? Is life about me or watching and praying with Him?
- Look out. What are the needs around me? What prompting has God given me? What insights and wisdom has God given me? Are my priorities aligned with God?
- Look up. Watch for Christ’s coming. Pray, confess, sing, meditate, worship, give thanks, rejoice—never taking my eyes of the fact that Jesus left His home in glory and came to this earth, like a rich man moving to the slums of Calcutta, and reconnected us with the Father. I have direct access to God through Jesus Christ. Gaze on that glory.
Question: Will you WAP in 2017? Verbalize it, make it public in the comments.
