Revelation 3:15-17 AMP “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold (invigorating, refreshing) nor hot (healing, therapeutic); I wish that you were cold or hot.
16 So because you are lukewarm (spiritually useless), and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth [rejecting you with disgust].
17 Because you say, “I am rich, and have prospered and grown wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked [without hope and in great need], [Hos 12:8]”
We may be saved, but God watches our actions. He watches how we worship Him and how we live our lives in respect to Him. I used to think the word “cold” was a person who had fallen away, but we must be both cold and hot.
The city of Laodicea did not possess its own natural water supply. Their water had to be brought in by aqueducts, and by the time it arrived, it was lukewarm. Jesus was describing the church of Laodicea like their water supply. It was lukewarm.
The spiritual condition of the church was complacency, self-sufficiency, and ineffective faith. When they served others, their lives or ability to serve were neither refreshing nor life-giving. They were not cold in terms of refreshing or invigorating. They were also neither “hot.” They had no passion to serve effectively, whether for others or the church. The ability to be light and salt was dulled by their spiritual apathy. Lukewarm means spiritually useless.
Can we be like this? Absolutely!!!
Therefore, check yourself. What is the solution? Jesus said, ” Go buy gold from Him, heated in the furnace of His Fire. What do you think that means? If you’re not willing to go through the difficult road of suffering or persecution, nor give your excellence in the midst of trials, you will fall into spiritual apathy or become lukewarm. Because life is fairly easy for most Christians living in America, they fall into spiritual apathy. What happens then? We become spiritually useless, and we become deceived, thinking we are still good with God, but that is not what the Bible says.
Senior Pastor Steve Kim