Never take a play off

Never take a play off...never take a day off...never take a practice off....these are some of the things coaches tell their players every day. They can never take it easy because the moment they do somebody else is going to hit them square in the mouth. Always be on guard, always be on your toes, always be awake. Key points to a great practice and a great game...
A man by the name Eutychus could have really used that piece of advice the night he fell asleep listening to Paul preach. In Acts 20:7-12 we meet Eutychus and I am sure Eutychus was a great man in search of an even greater God which is why he was listening to Paul preach until after Midnight...but he fell asleep, he took a play off, he let his guard down for just a moment and what happened? "..He fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below." That's right he fell right out the window and died. 
So how do we fall? Just like Eutychus...we fall asleep.
-Life gets too busy and our time with Jesus goes out the window and we fall asleep
-We read the Word of God to finish not to change and we fall asleep
-We do things out of habit instead out of a pursuit for Holiness and we fall asleep
-We flirt with sin one step at a time and we fall sleep
-We put our love of this world over the our Love for Jesus and we fall asleep
If you are like me, you can relate to one or all of these scenarios. You are going along with life just listening to the preacher one minute and then you got lazy, let your guard down, and bam...you realize your relationship with Jesus is in survival mode and you realize you have fallen asleep.
Just like Eutychus...we too can wake up! That's right Paul rushed to him, healed him, and he woke up!
The message Jesus gives to the church of Sardis in Revelation 3:1-4 is the same message He wants to give to you today..."I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive-but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again." 
First, we need to realize nobody can fall too far that Jesus can not reach them. Wake up and realize you and your faith have fallen asleep.
Second, Turn back to God and ask God to draw near to you again. We must return to our first love, Jesus. We need to date Jesus and remember why we fell in love with Him.
Third, the Bible says Eutychus went home unhurt. I love this! He returned home without a scar, without a wheelchair, without any signs that he had fallen asleep and fell out of a window. We must go back to God, but not look back on our failures. We don't have to walk around with the scarlet letter on our chest that shows we fell asleep...we don't look back, we go on ,unhurt, not because of anything we did, but because of what Jesus did! He heals us when we are dead. He saves us when we fall. He wakes us up when we fall asleep.
If you have taken a play off its time to WAKE UP and get back into the game!!!!