“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16 ESV) What an image..how many times have you heard it said, "you can not serve two masters?" Now granted the next phrase is "you can not serve both God and money," but it is clearly declaring we must love one and hate the other. With the Lord there are no lukewarm attitudes and behaviors allowed. With the Lord we must either love Him and follow Him or we become like spit from His mouth. I look around modern Christian culture today and we have become a lukewarm culture. Look around, can you distinguish Christian from non-Christian? Can you honestly point out those whose lives are being transformed by the working of the Holy Spirit and those who claim to be Christians? We are afraid to stand up for what we believe because we are afraid to be called radicals or conservatives or intolerant. We are letting the minority rule our schools, our jobs, and our government. We are afraid to speak out because we are afraid to be shut down. We lack boldness and courage to stand up and be set apart, to be different, to pull ourselves away, yet still maintain an appropriate relationship with the world. We embody and emulate the world instead of embodying and emulating the Word; we desire to be more like those who are less like Him than more like those who are more like Him. We lack discernment and we push back the Spirit instead of enabling the Spirit to open our eyes to the truth about what and who is around us. We see "fun" and "greener grass" in the world and a life of "do's and don'ts in the Word."We forget that there is freedom in Christ not bondage. I recently had a student tell me he hates not being able to laugh about what the other guys are laughing at and all he wanted was to participate with them because it looks fun; he said he wanted to do what they do and be with them because then he would fit in. I nearly knocked him upside the head and I know everyone walking down the hall heard my response! Poor thing his eyes were like a deer caught in headlights when I was finished!:) (It was all done in love!) But that is the view we all take! How many times have we changed who we are and what we believe because we hate not being able to talk about what others are talking about, and it looks like they are having more fun??
I would rather be anything than be spit out of His mouth. I pray we as a body of believers begin to set ourselves apart in a godly manner; we become in this world not of this world. We begin to be on fire and passionate not lukewarm and dying. May we become a people of change, a people that desire to help others, widows, orphans, needy. May we be a people that emulate Him and Him alone. May His Word speak through our actions, in love, towards one another. May we change our church culture into a culture of love. May we get past the lukewarm attitudes and either desire to be all in or all out...He wants either hot or cold, not riding the middle of the fence.
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