Revelation 3:15-18 is the passage where our modern understanding of Lukewarm comes from. Read through it! This is a hard passage to swallow. It is very indicting. It causes me to reflect on the characteristics we have been examining for the past couple of weeks. Not to worry about whether I am a child of GOD or not, or whether I am in the Kingdom or not, or whether or not I am saved, but to examine my level of discipleship. Am I growing in my relationship with Jesus Christ? Am I being transformed into His image? Am I becoming more like Him, less like Him, or staying the same with no growth at all? Do I look like every other person I know in terms of my character, attitude and worldview, or am I making a radical shift in the way I think, behave and look at the world? The answers to these kinds of questions help me to know how I am progressing on that spiritual growth continuum, facilitated by my surrender to the Holy Spirit.
GOD wants our best, deserves our best and demands our best! Offering GOD our leftovers is not what He desires. GOD has been clear from the beginning of His relationship with man that some offerings are acceptable and others are not. Just ask Cain (Genesis 4:5). It is very easy to fill ourselves up with other things and then give GOD what is leftover. Examine Hosea 13:6. Very often we give GOD a scrap or two only because we feel guilty for giving Him nothing. Examine Malachi 1:8. We are often satisfied that we have given something, and we think GOD should be satisfied as well.
As we have seen in our series for the past month, we need to reset our priorities, or at least assess what they are. Our greatest fear as human beings and as a church should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things that do not really matter! God's definition or description of what matters is really fairly straightforward. John 13:34-35 teaches us that our central value is LOVE. The apostle Paul reinforces that in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13. We are, like GOD, meant to represent what LOVE is to others.
This swimming-upstream, pursuing Jesus Christ, taking-up-your-cross, counting-the-cost thing is not easy. It is so very hard. But it is worth it! True faith means holding nothing back.
Have you read through The Gospels lately? Have you read through any one of The Gospels recently? Whether you have or not, I would recommend that you pick one of The Gospels and read through it from the perspective of a twelve-year-old who knows nothing about Jesus. Try to discover or rediscover what reasonable conclusions a person might come to about Jesus, His values and His life. Try to read the Bible like you have never read it before. That will be hard, but try. Once you have done that, what conclusions do you come to? Write them down. Meditate on them. Pray about them. Share them with someone else.
SOME ENCOUNTER QUESTIONS
- Are you willing to say to GOD that He can have whatever He wants?
- Do you believe that wholehearted commitment to GOD is more important than any other thing or person in your life? Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever truly matter, unless it is founded upon and connected to loving GOD and loving the people He has made?
- Has your relationship with GOD actually changed the way you think, behave and live?
- Do you see evidence of GOD's Kingdom in your life? What is it?
- Do you find yourself often "serving leftovers to a Holy and Loving God?" How can that change?
- In what ways have you already begun to change, since we began this series together?
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