Introduction
Sir, the moment your eyes awake in this present evil world, you must realize that you are not waking to a playground, but to a battlefield. The transition from sleep to consciousness is the most critical moment of your day; it is the opening of the gates, the lifting of the latch. If you do not immediately take the sentry post of your heart and guard it with all diligence, you have already surrendered the high ground to a diligent predator.
This is a letter to the man in the mirror, a private instruction intended to prepare the soul before the day’s bombardment begins. The goal is simple but the execution is rigorous: ensure the Lord Jesus Christ is given His due preeminence before a single distraction is given place. Failure to establish this needful tone is not only a missed opportunity; it is a tactical disaster that allows the world, the flesh, and the prince of the power of the air to win the day before you have even put your feet upon the floor.
The Threefold Guard at the Gate
The heart must be protected from three distinct directions the moment it emerges from the quietness of sleep.
First, protect it from the bombardment of your own thoughts. Your own mind, if left to its own devices, will immediately begin to weave a web of anxieties, grievances, and carnal schemes.
Secondarily, protect it from the bondage of digital devices. To reach for a screen before reaching for the Savior is to invite the collective noise of a dying culture to dictate the frequency of your soul. It is a voluntary enslavement that fragments the focus and poisons the well.
Finally, guard against rushed and impending distractions. The fevered pursuit of the day’s agenda will attempt to crowd out the eternal. You must stand at the sentry post and refuse entry to every secondary concern until the primary relationship is fundamentally established. Only then are you better suited to resist temptation and to choose to walk in the Spirit rather than give way to the flesh.
The Altar of the Broken Spirit
We often think that spiritual victory requires a gathering of strength, but the Bible reveals it requires a yielding of spirit. The early morning fortification is not built on the pride of our own resolve, but on the altar of a contrite heart.
“O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalm 51:15–17)
This is the internal exposition of a successful morning. Before you can speak to the world, the Lord must “open thou my lips.” You do not bring God a list of your intended religious performances; you bring Him a broken spirit, a heart that recognizes its utter bankruptcy apart from His grace. God does not demand the silver and gold of your efforts; He requires the precious blood of His Son and a heart that rests its full weight upon that immutable foundation.
The Resurrection of the Daily Walk
We live in a creation that “groaneth and travaileth in pain,” waiting for the redemption of our body. Every morning we wake, we feel the weight of this “bondage of corruption.”
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us… even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (Romans 8:18, 23)
If the Lord can raise the dead by way of the resurrection, a promise as certain as the rising of the sun, can He not also raise your heart daily? Is it not a simpler matter for Him to quicken your soul at 6:00 AM than it is to raise the dead in Christ first?
Consider the consistency of the sun: it rises daily because through Him “all things consist.” If the Lord maintains the very sun itself with such unwavering precision, can you not live by that same consistency? Your early morning preparation is more than a habit; it is a daily rehearsal for the day when the Son of Righteousness shall be the very light of that coming city. We are saved by hope, and that hope is forged in the quiet, early hours of meditation upon His word.
The Diligent Predator and the Renewed Mercy
Do not be deceived by the stillness of the morning air.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
An unprepared heart is easy prey. The roaring lion does not take a day off, and he finds his most vulnerable targets among those who have skipped the sentry post. He is a diligent predator, and his most effective weapon is the “rushed morning,” the soul that enters the “present evil world” without its armor.
God’s mercy is indeed “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23), but far too often that renewal appears to exist in vain because we fail to lay hold of it. The mercy is there, the word is there, and the Spirit is there, but they must be met with a heart that has made proper preparation.
Conclusion
Sir, you have a new opportunity day-by-day. Do not allow the terrible precedent of a prayerless morning to prevent your spiritual focus from ever being recovered. The world’s bombardment will come; the lion will seek his prey; the flesh will demand its due.
But if the sentry has been at his post, if the word has been meditated upon and the lips have been opened by the Lord, then you may walk out into the day not as a victim of circumstance, but as a soldier of the Cross. This early morning fortification sets the tone for all that follows. Take your post. Guard your heart. Walk with the Lord. The sun has risen; ensure your heart has risen with it.
Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist Church
Lucedale, Mississippi
