Ezekiel 24-26
Hebrews 11:1-16
Psalm 110:1-7
Proverbs 27:14
I have to be honest: I've been having a hard time reading Ezekiel. I read about the unfaithfulness of Israel and Jerusalem and Samaria and how vile and wretched it was in God's eyes. He gave everything to His people and they responded with ungrateful, sinful behavior. It's been difficult to read because I might as well substitute Israel's name with my own. My behavior is no different. God has given me everything and how do I repay him? By putting him at the bottom of my priority list, by spending my time on anything but Him, by thinking of things that have nothing to do with Him, by squeezing him into my busy important schedule and then thinking that I did a good thing.
I started feeling terrible again when I was reading Francis Chen's book "Crazy Love" earlier this week. There is a chapter called Profile of the Lukewarm. In Revelation 3, Jesus says that He will spit the lukewarm out of His mouth. Lukewarm people are partially committed, halfhearted, distracted. The more I read about being lukewarm, the more I saw myself and I felt even worse.
Thankfully, I kept reading. In the next chapter, Francis writes that he doesn't want us to doubt our salvation. "I'm not saying that when you mess up, it means you were never really a genuine Christian in the first place. If that were true, no one could follow Christ."
What it boils done to is love. God's love for us is so great and so indescribable and so infinite that we could never sin so much that He would stop loving us. Just look at Hebrews 11 and the great examples of faith. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Samson, David. How many of these people were perfect? How many times previously this year have we read about these individuals and how they would fall flat on their faces? And yet here they are praised for their faithfulness? How can this be? Because God loves them and His love transformed sinful, faithless, ungrateful, wretched, lukewarm people into great men and women of faith. And He can do the same for you and for me.
Don't be discouraged when your faults are pointed out to you. When we become aware of our sinfulness, we should not sink into despair and hopelessness and self-pity. The correct response is to run to the God who loves us despite our weakness. Turn from your old ways and love Him for all that He is and for all He has done and for all that He continues to do for us.
What are steps we can take to prevent ourselves from being lukewarm? Is it possible to do this on our own?
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