“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish 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 NASB)
Running. The first mile or so is a warm up. A stretching of the legs of sorts. After a few miles the body begins to get into a rhythm. You begin to know how far in miles you have gone without looking at the watch. For me, I know because I am tired and I am ready for a walk break. Ready for a big ol’ gulp of ice cold water. The device I use keeps my water pretty cold for a little while but after several miles, once the sun mixes with the warmth of my hand, it becomes lukewarm. I remember taking a swig and grimacing. Because I wanted to have enough fluid to finish out the run I didn’t spit it out. But the taste of lukewarm water was not satisfying to me. It just wasn’t what I was looking for. Not effective in quenching my thirst. Lukewarm Gatorade is even worse. It gets foamy….yuck.
Just for the sake of this message I decided to look up the definition of lukewarm in the Holman Bible Dictionary. This is what it said.
Lukewarm: Tepid: neither hot nor cold.
Not much wordage but a massive amount of meaning. Jesus used this to describe His church in Laodicea. The group of believers there were complacent. Did very little and mostly served themselves and their desires. They just had lost their fire. Isnt that what comomly happens to believers? Maybe not all but many, right? It happened to me and I taught within the church I was attending. I sang with the praise team, too. Often we go through the motions of a church-going believer, but our actions seldom match what we say we believe. Who we want to be. So who are we? Chosen. Loved. Bought with the very precious blood of Christ. Redeemed and atoned through His sacrificial death over 2000 years ago. Rescued from what we deserve without Him. Bought. With blood. Why does this not keep us excited once we ask Jesus to live in us?
This is a question we must ask ourselves and pray over. Ask the one who loves you most what has stolen your joy. Your fire. He will reveal it to you. For me it was a self-seeking desire to fulfill my needs. That desire became stronger to me than the desire my Jesus wanted for me. But He will call you to His side. He will answer the heart’s cry for understanding when you choose to seek him. He promises us this in the book of James. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you”. (James 4:8 NKJV)
Laodicea wasn’t pleasing to the Master and He said He would spit them out of His mouth. They were not effective for the Kingdom of God. Desire to be hot. Desire to show others your fire. After all, we know what fire does…it heats things up. Cleanses and purifies. Makes ready to be used for something very good and tasty. Ooooh…like a cup of hot pumpkin flavored coffee!!!
I love it, love it, love it………yay God for using my BFF to give a wonderful parable.
Hi! Would you mind if I share your blog with my myspace group?
There’s a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content.
Please let me know. Cheers
Very interesting, May God continue to bless in your important ‘work’.
Fire… our church has seen a remarkable change since we began meeting on a regular basis at church to pray. Amazingly, it started with about six of us, and now it has reached more than twenty that meets every Thursday night at 6:00PM. We usually don’t leave until somewhere between 9:30PM and 10:00PM. We come together to worship our God… our Jesus… our Holy Spirit and to pray for direction and guidance for our church. We also war against the Ephesian 6 fallen angels and their plans against us. The result… an amazingly different presence of God in our prayer meetings and in our church services. The Lord spoke to one of our elders and told him that the ones who were coming to pray were the spark… When he told God that a spark wasn’t much, God reminded him that a fire doesn’t start until there is a spark. Every one of us belongs to our own part of “the world.” Let the spark begin in us…
did this reply page get to you Jenn?
I think the admin of this web page is actually working
hard in support of his web site, for the reason
that here every material is quality based material.
Thank you so very much for your support. It is very much appreciated.
In His Love,
Michelle Hawkins
Hey there! I’ve been following your web site for a long time now and finally got
the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Lubbock Tx!
Just wanted to tell you keep up the great work!
Thank you so very much! Your response was sent to spam for some reason but I have fixed that.
Your encouragement is appreciated and I am grateful for the shout out. I am praying for the Lord to bring to fruition a women’s evening conference near Beaumont Texas soon. Would love to hear from you if you live near there. God’s amazing love, mercy and grace is my desire to share with His children and to encourage them every step of their walk with Christ.
In His Love,
Michelle Hawkins
First of all I want to say supeerb blog! I had a quick question in whifh I’d like to ask
if you do not mind. I was curious to find out how you
center yourself and clear your head before writing.
I’ve had difficulty clearing my thoughts in getting
my thoughts out there. I do tale pleasure in writing however it
just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are lost simply just trying to figure out how
to begin. Any ideas oor tips? Cheers!
First of all I want to say I am so sorry that I did not see this response. It was in Spam??? I fixed that.
Thank you precious one for this encouragement. You are right. Centering is absolutely non-negotiable. The enemy works hard at distractions. Here is what I do. First it is crucial to stay in the word every single day. Even if you can only read one or two verses or listen to the bible on CD to and from work. The word of God is your sword. Prayer , prayer and more prayer. Sometimes the enemy evens distracts me in prayer…well actually a lot of times. So declare out loud to the enemy that in Jesus name the enemy is bound. Then he must flee from you. Many times I think I know what the Lord wants me to write about that week. Then when I begin, He changes it up on me. I let my fingers follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Be careful to not let your own understanding or ideas dictate what is actually written. Sometimes music helps. I have started listening to gentle music by Julie True. She is gifted and sings biblical verses to beautiful angelic sounds of piano. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. He will bring it together for you. Rest in Him and acknowledge His faithfulness to do within you what you cant even imagine could be done. He surprises me every time. He is so good.
Again thank you so much for your encouraging words. And a prayer has been sent up for you.
In His Love,
Michelle Hawkins
Did my reply to your response get to you? Im not certain I yet have this blogging stuff down correctly. I sent you a reply earlier today.
Thanks,
Michelle
Thiss website was… how do you say it? Relevant!! Finally
I’ve found something which helped me. Kudos!