Sick of my lukewarm existence

[alphanoodle]

When Richard Wurmbrand wrote his book, ‘Tortured for Christ’, warning the free world of the coming horrors of Marxist persecution, he testified that ‘I never saw a lukewarm Christian in Russia. False Christians, yes, but never lukewarm.’
It’s really hard to be ‘hot’ for the Lord, or ‘on fire’ for him when the world offers so much temptation and peace in our prosperous democracy - if it can be called that. Yet Jesus says that he would rather that we be altogether ‘cold’ rather than like the baby bear’s porridge - ‘not to hot, no too cold.’ Remember that it was ‘just right’ to the tongue of Goldilocks; but Jesus demands that his porridge be red hot! For whom then is the ‘just right’ lukewarmness of our existence? Whose aim is it to give us hearts that, like Peter was reproved for, ‘savor not the things of God, but the things of man.’
I am so afraid, and I think this is right because God commands us to ‘work out our salvation with fear and trembling.’ This is not to say that we are to be so dreadful of God or damnation as to forget that he is the one who is on our side to chasten us for our good, that ‘we may share in his holiness’, and to ‘bring forth the peaceful fruit of righteousness.’ It is a healthy reverent fear that it due to a regent and Creator as well as Father. Jesus delighted in the fear of God. ‘Though he was a son, he learned obedience by what he suffered.’

What does a ‘hot’ life for Christ look like? What exactly is lukewarmness? What will happen to us if we do have lukewarm lives in Christ? Does it mean that we shall be damned?
Jesus ‘gave himself to deliver us from this present evil world’, Paul wrote. Peter wrote that God gave us precious promises, that ‘through them we might participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruptions in the world through sinful desires.’ Paul also wrote that if we live according to the flesh ‘ye shall die.’
This only speaks to the things that are openly and clearly sinful - things that obviously violate the ‘law of liberty’ in Christ. As Paul says, ‘Do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh.’ Also, ‘Though all things are lawful for me, not all things are expedient.’ There are spiritual consequences for a saint who lives against his divine nature, against the Holy Spirit who is in him to transform him and conform him to the Son.
But beyond sinfulness, there seems to be something else that Christ includes in being ‘hot’ or passionate or zealous and fervent in our faith. We know that Peter lists things that must be a part of our character in ‘increasing’ measure, and these things prevent us from stumbling into sin. Elsewise, he says, we will find ourselves to be blind to our spiritual condition, and forgetful of the fact that we are washed of our sins - that we are no longer carnal souls lost in sin. So it helps to have some gauge by which to measure our spiritual condition and improvement. Unfortunately, that measure is often lost in the congregational churches, and subtly replaced with a human definition of righteousness and spirituality. It is the Free Mason definition that claims that men can be virtuous, and innocent by their works. It has infiltrated the church and robbed heavenly made creatures of what God promised to them. It is a culturally defined morality, while we are meant to be the ones who show the culture what true righteousness and holiness is, according to God’s standard.
The difference is just what Peter says, to be provided by the ‘divine nature.’ We are to add to ‘our faith’, and ‘by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh.’ We cannot have God’s holiness apart from God. We cannot have His spirituality apart from His spirit. ‘It is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good will.’ It is the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ being produced through us as passive vessels, merely ‘abiding in the vine’ - Christ, by our communion with Him.
The first and foremost priority, then, is prayer. Jesus said that if we have a secret life of prayer, then our Father would reward us openly, publicly. It is secondly the reflection of the word of God, as James says, when we study the word of God with an obedient attitude, and not merely to fool ourselves into thinking that academic bible knowledge is proof of Christian maturity, then we will be ‘blessed in what he DOES.’
Meditating on the Son of God is only reasonable since we are meant to conform to Him. How can we reflect the Son, if we do not ‘gaze into his image as in a mirror, we are being changed into his image from glory to glory as BY THE SPIRIT.’

There are many times and places when we cannot be engaged in what we would call Christian labors; evangelizing, singing, even giving, helping the needy, or fellowshipping. There are many believers who have spent literally decades in prison or captivity in muslim homes or other such things, and have no freedom to exercise these. Can they not, then, be ‘hot’ for the Lord? There must be something included in the command that applies to them also. The Voice of the Martyrs published a book on North Korean martyrs in which they tell of one woman who, because she could not openly pray, wore two grooves in the wooden floor in her attic over a two decades through her regular, silent, fervent prayer. She wasn’t able to do any of the things we take for granted, but oh, was her prayer ‘hot’ in Christ. Her spirit was passionate and zealous, and persevering as well. I just think it behooves us in these last few days, to seek the Lord in prayer about what he means, and how that applies to each of us. I don’t feel that I am at all on fire for the Lord. It disturbs me, not because I am afraid of being damned, but of missing something that the Lord would do through me if I were, and of the communion that he would be having with me if I were more devout and yielded to his plan for me.

 

[gideons300]

When Richard Wurmbrand wrote his book, ‘Tortured for Christ’, warning the free world of the coming horrors of Marxist persecution, he testified that ‘I never saw a lukewarm Christian in Russia. False Christians, yes, but never lukewarm.’
It’s really hard to be ‘hot’ for the Lord, or ‘on fire’ for him when the world offers so much temptation and peace in our prosperous democracy - if it can be called that. Yet Jesus says that he would rather that we be altogether ‘cold’ rather than like the baby bear’s porridge - ‘not to hot, no too cold.’ Remember that it was ‘just right’ to the tongue of Goldilocks; but Jesus demands that his porridge be red hot! For whom then is the ‘just right’ lukewarmness of our existence? Whose aim is it to give us hearts that, like Peter was reproved for, ‘savor not the things of God, but the things of man.’
I am so afraid, and I think this is right because God commands us to ‘work out our salvation with fear and trembling.’ This is not to say that we are to be so dreadful of God or damnation as to forget that he is the one who is on our side to chasten us for our good, that ‘we may share in his holiness’, and to ‘bring forth the peaceful fruit of righteousness.’ It is a healthy reverent fear that it due to a regent and Creator as well as Father. Jesus delighted in the fear of God. ‘Though he was a son, he learned obedience by what he suffered.’

What does a ‘hot’ life for Christ look like? What exactly is lukewarmness? What will happen to us if we do have lukewarm lives in Christ? Does it mean that we shall be damned?
Jesus ‘gave himself to deliver us from this present evil world’, Paul wrote. Peter wrote that God gave us precious promises, that ‘through them we might participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruptions in the world through sinful desires.’ Paul also wrote that if we live according to the flesh ‘ye shall die.’
This only speaks to the things that are openly and clearly sinful - things that obviously violate the ‘law of liberty’ in Christ. As Paul says, ‘Do not use your liberty as an opportunity for the flesh.’ Also, ‘Though all things are lawful for me, not all things are expedient.’ There are spiritual consequences for a saint who lives against his divine nature, against the Holy Spirit who is in him to transform him and conform him to the Son.
But beyond sinfulness, there seems to be something else that Christ includes in being ‘hot’ or passionate or zealous and fervent in our faith. We know that Peter lists things that must be a part of our character in ‘increasing’ measure, and these things prevent us from stumbling into sin. Elsewise, he says, we will find ourselves to be blind to our spiritual condition, and forgetful of the fact that we are washed of our sins - that we are no longer carnal souls lost in sin. So it helps to have some gauge by which to measure our spiritual condition and improvement. Unfortunately, that measure is often lost in the congregational churches, and subtly replaced with a human definition of righteousness and spirituality. It is the Free Mason definition that claims that men can be virtuous, and innocent by their works. It has infiltrated the church and robbed heavenly made creatures of what God promised to them. It is a culturally defined morality, while we are meant to be the ones who show the culture what true righteousness and holiness is, according to God’s standard.
The difference is just what Peter says, to be provided by the ‘divine nature.’ We are to add to ‘our faith’, and ‘by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh.’ We cannot have God’s holiness apart from God. We cannot have His spirituality apart from His spirit. ‘It is God who works in you both to will and to do according to his good will.’ It is the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ being produced through us as passive vessels, merely ‘abiding in the vine’ - Christ, by our communion with Him.
The first and foremost priority, then, is prayer. Jesus said that if we have a secret life of prayer, then our Father would reward us openly, publicly. It is secondly the reflection of the word of God, as James says, when we study the word of God with an obedient attitude, and not merely to fool ourselves into thinking that academic bible knowledge is proof of Christian maturity, then we will be ‘blessed in what he DOES.’
Meditating on the Son of God is only reasonable since we are meant to conform to Him. How can we reflect the Son, if we do not ‘gaze into his image as in a mirror, we are being changed into his image from glory to glory as BY THE SPIRIT.’

There are many times and places when we cannot be engaged in what we would call Christian labors; evangelizing, singing, even giving, helping the needy, or fellowshipping. There are many believers who have spent literally decades in prison or captivity in muslim homes or other such things, and have no freedom to exercise these. Can they not, then, be ‘hot’ for the Lord? There must be something included in the command that applies to them also. The Voice of the Martyrs published a book on North Korean martyrs in which they tell of one woman who, because she could not openly pray, wore two grooves in the wooden floor in her attic over a two decades through her regular, silent, fervent prayer. She wasn’t able to do any of the things we take for granted, but oh, was her prayer ‘hot’ in Christ. Her spirit was passionate and zealous, and persevering as well. I just think it behooves us in these last few days, to seek the Lord in prayer about what he means, and how that applies to each of us. I don’t feel that I am at all on fire for the Lord. It disturbs me, not because I am afraid of being damned, but of missing something that the Lord would do through me if I were, and of the communion that he would be having with me if I were more devout and yielded to his plan for me.

I have a pastor friend of mine that works with World Serve, a missionary organization working withthe underground church in China. They did a video of a seminary in China that has been operating 20 years. The one teacher and "owner" is a woman, who has trained 160 ministers a year and sent them out to preach the gospel. Each training session is 6 months long, minus three days. The building consists of an 30' x 30' "room" thirty feet underground with a narrow cave stairway leading downward to it.

The eighty minister trainees go down underground before daylight and stay until after dark, seven days a week. They eat two meals a day in a dank cave, learning about Jesus. The lady minister, who has labored faithfully for those 20 years, sees daylight six days a year, during the two three-day breaks. There is a great video you can see on YOUTUBE about it. Just type in China seminary underground and I think you will find it.

My friend also told me that since the word of God is hard to come by, each church is given a portion of the Bible and they share with each other, passing the word of God around in portions that are treasured. I think I have five Bibles myself. To whom much is given.... hmmmm.

May God forgive us all and set us ablaze for Him. We cannot light ourselves, but we can admit our lack of light and seek Him to come find us poor lost sheep, amen?

Many blessings,

Gideon