Stop Bed Rotting in Passivity: How to Awake, Arise, and Advance in Faith

You show up to church on Sunday. You say the right prayers. You try your absolute best to keep everything together. But deep down, you are completely stuck.

You’re having the exact same argument with your spouse for the hundredth time. You’re hiding the exact same secret habit in the dark. You’re carrying the quiet, crushing fatigue of broken expectations. When prayers seem to go unanswered, it becomes terrifyingly easy to stop expecting God to move at all. You settle for a routine because staying numb feels safer than being disappointed again.

I see this every week across our V1 campuses. Believers get trapped in the lie that because they didn't see a breakthrough last time, God isn't going to move this time. But I’m here to tell you plain truth: you cannot let your past failures dictate your present obedience.

Your past failures cannot dictate your present obedience.

Awake: Why Bringing Secrets to Light Is Your Only Weapon

As I’ve been laboring in the Book of Ephesians, God has been unpacking a urgent revelation for our house. In Ephesians 5:8–14, Paul gives a clear command: you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, so walk as children of light.

True awakening never starts with putting on a clean face for Sunday morning. It starts with radical, unvarnished honesty. I tell our church all the time: you cannot accept your true identity until you're willing to confess the false one. Religion demands that you wear a mask and pretend you have everything under control. But biblical deliverance demands that you step directly into the light.

I think about my friend Chris at V1 Church. Before celebrating nine years of sobriety, he walked through our doors secretly leading worship while high on drugs. His turning point didn't come from trying to fix himself in private—it came when he exposed that darkness before the church community. When you bring secret struggles into the light, the enemy loses all power over you.

When you tell on yourself, the devil loses all power to blackmail you.

This kind of raw vulnerability is what reopens historical wells of revival. While studying the history of Long Island before our Breakers events, I searched the archives for documented revivals. Back in the late 1700s, three women on the East End of Long Island got honest about how dry and dead their local churches had become. They gathered to pray that God would send a revivalist to their region.

Unbeknownst to them, a preacher across Long Island Sound in Connecticut felt a fire in his heart and booked a ship bound for New York City. But a massive storm swept in, forcing the captain to alter course and drop him off on Long Island—delivering him straight to the front door of the woman who started the prayer meeting. God literally redirected a ship across the water because three women refused to pretend anymore.

Arise: Stop Bed Rotting in Spiritual Mediocrity

Scripture doesn't stop at waking up. In Ephesians 5:14, Paul commands, "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

Notice that "awake" and "arise" are two completely separate commands. The tragic reality I see in the body of Christ today is that millions of believers have awakened to spiritual truth, yet they refuse to get out of bed. They are bed rotting in passivity, indulging in comfortable pillow talk about faith while remaining completely immobile.

When Jesus healed the paralytic, He didn't tell him to hug his mat like a security blanket; He commanded him to pick it up and walk. Awakening gives you sight, but arising gives you motion. You cannot expect the light of Christ to shine on your life while you choose to lie around in spiritual laziness.

Awakening gives you sight, but arising gives you motion.

Paul continues in Ephesians 5:18: "Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." Culture turns to alcohol or toxic coping mechanisms to numb anxiety, but God offers the filling of the Holy Spirit as liquid courage for your soul. Stop turning to worldly vices when life gets heavy. Pregame in prayer and worship before you step into life's battles.

I’ll ask you what I asked our congregation: have you tried drinking for anxiety? It's called the Holy Spirit.

Awakening without arising is just sleeping with your eyes open.

Advance: How Locking Shields Unlocks Strategic Breakthrough

Once you awake and arise, God commands you to advance. In Ephesians 4:25–30, Paul outlines our strategic rules of engagement: put away falsehood, resolve your anger before the sun goes down, give zero opportunity to the devil, and above all, do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual warfare cannot be fought in isolation. Proverbs 18:1 warns that he who isolates himself rages against all wise judgment. We advance when we lock our shields of faith together across every campus and community. When your brother or sister receives a devastating diagnosis or feels their faith wavering, you don't judge them—you plant your shield right next to theirs and say, "I will have faith for you today."

Your next act of obedience does not have to be dramatic to be decisive.

We also advance by fierce reverence for the Holy Spirit's presence. You grieve the Holy Spirit when you indulge in gossip, harbor bitter offenses, or treat sacred worship services like a social hour in the lobby.

I’ll never forget preaching in Palermo, Sicily, at the largest church in Italy. The moment I spoke about stepping out of spiritual darkness, the entire building's electrical power cut out completely. The demonic realm despises when a church honors the Spirit. But when we reverence His presence, supernatural miracles begin to flow effortlessly.

Step Out of the Shadows and Act

Stop waiting for a more convenient season or a softer word. The time for passivity is over. Get out of the bed of spiritual mediocrity, confess the habit you’ve been protecting in the dark, and forgive the person who wounded you. Pick up your shield, link arms with your church family, and refuse to grieve the Spirit of God.

Step out of the shadows, awake from your slumber, arise from your seat, and advance in faith!

Visit a V1 campus at v1.church/times-locations.