I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. What do you think when you are driving on the highway, and some driver comes along, disregarding every traffic law in the book right beside your car? Driving on the wrong side of the road, speeding or going below the speed limit, passing in no passing zones, not wearing seatbelts... or my personal pet peeve - parents who do not have young children in car seats, but rather allow them to move about the car freely and unrestrained?
Of course, it bothers all that are safe and conscientious drivers. We don't like to see people disobey the law, especially when it is we who suffer the consequences.
Consider this. Say you are driving and doing everything you should be, when a cop pulls you over, saunters up to your window, and something like this comes out of his mouth:
"A ways back you passed a car that was moving more slowly."
"I didn't exceed the speed limit." you say, a bit confused.
"Yeah, but I've decided that passing is against the law today. You just never know when passing is going to turn into speeding, and I'm not allowing it anymore."
Sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? Of course this is counterproductive and not helpful to the general state of the roadways. What is concerning is that we as a church increasingly are doing everything we can to sabotage our own growth and productivity in Christ, the work He has us on this earth to do. Some of the ways we do this we don't even think about.
God made it clear from these verses from Revelation 3 to the Laodicean church (which I believe is most likely a representation of the final part of the church age)that being neither hot nor cold is unacceptable to Him. There are so many ways that we as a body of Christ make ourselves lukewarm, but all of them can be traced back to one major problem in the church today - and that is failure to yield to the authority of the Scripture.
This manifests in many different ways. Some go ahead and write new Scripture to add to the Bible. The problem arises when their words contradict the Bible. It seems people generally choose their own ideas in these cases.
Some hold on to traditions as the same as Scripture. This can be much more deceiving for believers who consider themselves to truly be saved by Christ, and may very well be. They have been taught a certain way of believing, which is very close to the Word, but still not quite right. When challenged, they cling to the traditions and teaching they have been handed down rather than cling to God's Words and let all else fall away.
It is interesting to think about some of the preconceived notions we have as a church that are not necessarily rooted in the Bible. An example of this is our ideas about Satan. I'm sure he is very relieved that the church believes he is so all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-seeing. I'm sure he's glad we think he can be everywhere, and attack each and every one of us. We've made him into a sort of "anti-God" when in reality he is only an angel. A fallen angel at that. And though he has a third of the angels that God created on his side, his abilities are so inferior to God's magnificent power that he isn't worth fearing or giving more credit than he is due. (When we are living in the strength of Christ, that is, for there is no question that he and his legions are still more powerful than us as human beings.)
We also tend to make heroes out of people, especially those who live in the past and whom we have never known personally. We have a very skewed picture of those who have gone before in Christ's name. Examples are the crusaders, whom for some reason I was taught to respect for their zeal in the name of Christ. When you take a good hard look at history, though, a great many of them actually went out and murdered God's people in Christ's name. Repercussions of these horrific acts of violence still ripple through the world today. Another example is the Puritans. They were certainly Puritans who truly loved Christ and lived for him. But a great amount of legalism existed in the Puritan life, and many people lost their freedom, their families, even their lives in honor of the rigid and impossibly stifling rules and demands Puritan leaders placed on their followers. Rules God never intended.
We tend to think that going overboard in our "righteous acts" would cause us to be "hotter" in God's eyes. In fact, it has the exact effect that God says makes him sick to his stomach. We mix our own version of righteousness, which is cold and dead, with His version, which is on fire with life and truth, and the result is a stale, disgusting, unappetizing lukewarm, like a drink that's been sitting in a hot car all afternoon.
I know this entry is long and more complex than I usually write. But if you don't read anything else, read this. God isn't interested in our brand of Christianity. It isn't good for us, it doesn't help us love or relate or win the lost he died to save. It's something that makes God sick.
That should be enough for all of us to get over what we think and just stick to what he says.I don't mean just believing it. I mean first of all
knowing it, which we are so lazy about. We are so busy and so distracted by our things and our money and our hobbies that we don't have time to study and know and love our Lord through his awesome and life-changing Book. That's why we don't know the truth, we don't understand his doctrines, and why we feel comfortable adding so much to it.
After we know what it says, we will learn to
love God the way we are supposed to. The way that gives us life, and peace, and strength, and joy. He says that we should buy from him "gold refined by fire." That's not an easy thing to seek. It means we are going to have to suffer as He molds us and burns off all that doesn't belong. We would rather be happy. Healthy. Relaxed. Safe. And although the Lord promises in the passage that he does love us and wants these things for us, now is not the time. They are for later. Now we are to welcome that which seems hard.
He has two strong petitions for us:
Be Earnest, (not lazy, selfish, apathetic, or proud but rather hard-working, others-focused, zealous and humble,) and then he urges us to
repent. We have such a comfortable relationship with sin. We don't mind breaking God's rules as long as we don't break our own. Sin is sin, and for us to truly have a relationship with God, sin must be cared for. Whether ultimately in the saving power of Christ's gift, or day-to-day so that we can know him on a deeper level.
It's a challenge that's hard to write, because I know that I tend toward warm just as much as any other Christian in this time and place. But I want more. I want to be hot. I want God's people to be hot. We are so spoiled. It's time for us all to wake up and get it together.
I don't know if these words will mean anything, or if anyone is still reading. But I pray that we can get our temperature up in this culture and society. He's going to return, and none of us are going to be paying attention. None of us are going to be ready to leave.
Time to get ready.
