Heart to Heart

I think it’s time we had a serious talk, about our level of commitment to the Savior. Let’s face it, we can say we want to live a life of purity but we’ve already established that we will forsake our convictions, even who we are, at a moment’s notice for the sake of friends, popularity, or convenience. Influence is the most powerful motivating factor in our lives. I believe we find ourselves only doing lip service to God “saying” we want to honor Him with our lives while not actually living it out (Is. 29:13, Ps. 36:1-3)? I think God takes such apathy more serious than we can imagine, He sees it as idolatry, and we know from our previous study that God hates apathy. Did you know there are only three spiritual conditions outlined in the Bible? COLD-HOT-LUKE WARM

Matthew 24:12- because of an increase of wickedness the love of MOST will grow cold. The word MOST gives me trouble. Matthew 7:17-19- a good tree will bear good fruit and a bad tree bad fruit…bad tree is useless except as firewood. Matthew 7:21-23- not everyone who says to Me Lord, Lord…MANY will say Lord, Lord did we not do…The word MANY gives me trouble. John 15:1-8- Jesus is the vine, we the branches, and God the gardener, stay connected to the vine or you will wither and die. Once again the withered branch becomes firewood. Revelation 3:15-16- The famous hot/cold/lukewarm condition is outlined for us, followed by the sickening effect it has on God and the expulsionary effect it has on us.

I believe our spiritual default setting is apathy (as laziness is common to all humans); it’s what we resort to when outside forces aren’t keeping us pumped up about our relationship with God. The lukewarm heart is worse than having no relationship with God at all because it shows our indifference to our faith and lessens the importance of the sacrifice of Christ. This was the same challenge Elijah gave to Israel in I Kings 18:21…how long will you waver? There is no spiritual neutral in our lives. Since anything not growing is dying then we must understand that this spiritual apathy is affecting all areas of our lives, especially purity.