The Disease of Lukewarmness
I was shifted again on Sunday morning to share a word from Revelation 3 which contains a loving rebuke of the Laodicean lukewarm church.
Lukewarm means: "moderately warm or tepid. To be indifferent, halfhearted, apathetic, or unenthused".
Jesus loves these saints so much that he disciplines them with a rebuke and invites them to "zealously repent". The consequence of not doing this will be the Lord spitting them out of his mouth(or fellowship).
The word to them, and to us New Life, is to overcome lukewarmness!! This is ours to do not his. He has provided everything to do it if we will agree. If we will not, there will be a more deadly consequence to us than the worst diseases on planet earth.
Lastly, I am never shocked by lukewarmness coming into a believers life, or the life of a body of believers. It is as contagious as the flu. What is shocking is our lack of effort to get the disease off of us, and each other, before it erodes our life here and in the future kingdom.
Pray for a radical hate of and freedom from lukewarmness.
In John 14, Jesus says multiple times that if we love him we will obey him. So really, obeying Jesus is not a drudgery but a manifest way to say to him- "I love you". Obedience is to be an intimate language of love spoken to Jesus from our heart and actions.
The Holy Spirit empowers love-directed obedience. He is not empowering obedience that is being done out of desire for the applause of man, or the fear of being caught, or as an effort to get God to love us more. No, the Spirit delights in obedience that comes from the heart as a way to manifest a choice of love for Jesus over sin.
If you are having trouble living in obedience, it is wisdom for you to not focus on more effort to obey but rather on more of a heart that loves Jesus. People who love Jesus, delight to obey Jesus. Our obedience problems are often rooted in a love problem. So ask the Holy Spirit to transform your heart to be a lover of God who says I love you through practical obedience.