If you have had surgery, you most likely received anesthesia to put you asleep. And hopefully, you weren't aware of what was happening in the operating room! Then afterwards, the anesthetist would reverse those drugs, and you started to become awake again. Your eyes opened and you could see. And you started to hear things again.
Our spiritual lives are like this. When we become born again, the Holy Spirit dwells in us, enabling our spiritual eyes to see and our spiritual ears to hear. We become sensitive to the things of the Spirit; the things that matter to God.
However, it is possible that we can become insensitive by allowing the things of this world, which is influenced by Satan, to dull our spiritual senses. It can start with small compromises, and before we realize it, we no longer feel the conviction of the sin we have allowed in our lives.
Our Heavenly Father is loving and merciful, though, and when we cry out to Him, in the desire to have our relationship with Him restored, He reverses the effects of worldly influences, and our spiritual sensitivity is brought back. We are then fully awake, and fully alive in Him.
Jesus said to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, which represent the churches in the church age, "Let him who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches." In other words, only those who know Christ as Lord and Savior, have the ability to be aware of the things that matter to God. Those who don't know Christ don't have that ability, as they don't have the Holy Spirit in them.
Let us be the church who is spiritually sensitive to the things that matter to God. As the moment when Christ returns for His Bride, the church, draws near, let us be that Bride who is fully alive and fully awake. Let us keep our lamps lit, and our spiritual antennas sharp.
