Here we are at the end of yet another year about to begin another.
It is easy in life for us to get caught up in our daily routines and to lose our passion for living. It is easy to miss our purpose and giftings and to begin to just go through the motions of life and miss out on truly living. It is easy to become stoic and indifferent toward things in life and to lose our zeal.
It’s like a child who wakes up on Christmas morning and, to their surprise, the toy that they wanted so badly is right there under the tree. None of the other gifts matter in comparison to the joy that this one brings. However, as the days go by, the novelty of the toy wears off. Eventually, the toy finds itself spending most of its time shoved in a corner of the child’s room and being forgotten about.
Sadly, we can treat our salvation the same way. When we’re first saved, when we first experience all of our sins being forgiven, we’re on fire for God! Nothing else matters! God’s words in the Bible speak to us fresh every time that we read them. We’re in constant conversation with God throughout our day in prayer. We sense God’s Presence through the Holy Spirit within us so powerfully. We want everyone to experience the same thing and we tell everyone about Jesus and urge them to be saved as well.
It isn’t that we lose our salvation. It isn’t that we reject God. It’s just that we grow complacent and we stop passionately pursuing God as we did in the beginning. We become content with where we are at and we stop pressing in.
Christianity is not a religion, it is a real-life relationship with the living God. Therefore, what happens in our human relationships can happen in our relationship with God as well.
Anyone who has been married for many years can relate. It’s not that we love our spouse any less, but we don’t express it the way that we did when our relationship first started. It’s not that we appreciate our spouse any less, but we don’t tell them like we did when our relationship first started.
Confidence in our relationship can bring about complacency in our relationship.
Complacency in our relationship with God is unacceptable to Him. He literally cannot accept it; He rejects it. If we are complacent and apathetic toward God, then our faith is dead and we need revival! Complacency and apathy shroud us in ignorance. We think we are OK with God, but we are anything but.
Perhaps the most dangerous condition for any person to be in is that of ignorance. They are unaware of their true condition. They think that they are in right standing with God and in need of nothing. However, they are far from it… Jesus gave this wake up call to His church in Laodicea and He is speaking it to us now as well.
Revelation 3:14-18
To the Church in Laodicea
14 To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.
15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
The most dangerous lot in life for a Christian is a place where they are doing well and not in need of anything from a worldly standard. They lose sight of their desperate need for God. They lose touch with what really matters in life and what is truly valuable to God.
This is nothing new. Laodicea is not the first group of people that God had to warn about this. We all are susceptible to this dangerous place in life. He warned His people shortly after bringing them into His promised land:
Deuteronomy 8:10-20
10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
19 If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.
God wasn’t concerned with the spiritual condition of His people when things got rough. He knew that when life got difficult that they would call out to Him and zealously seek after Him in desperation. It was when life was good and the blessings were flowing that He was concerned that they would forget Him and stop praising and pursuing Him. It is no different for us today.
God exposes this for what it is in the last few verses; idolatry. Just because we don’t buy a little wooden or stone figure and begin to bow down and worship it, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t guilty of idolatry. An idol is anything that we place in greater or equal value in our lives to God. It could be anything.
If we have become apathetic or complacent toward God, then something else has certainly become more important or equally important to us as Him.
The only relationship that doesn’t seem to be impacted by this complacency over time is the relationship between a dog and their human. They are just as excited to see you year 12 as they were on day 1. Somehow their zeal just never wears out…
In the upcoming year, I believe that the Lord desires to set us ablaze for Him and for life once again!
I believe that the Lord desires to fan into flame a zealous love for Him and for others once again!
I believe that the Lord desires to revive our purpose and passion for life anew and afresh!
Having this zeal changes us and therefore, changes everything that we do in life and everyone that we are in contact with in life. It is us becoming the salt and light that He created us to be!
Romans 12:11
Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.
How do we practically do this, though? How can we keep our zeal and fervor for the Lord? How do we protect our relationship with God from becoming complacent?
Well, let’s zoom out from verse 11 and find that answer in the rest of chapter 12.
Romans 12
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The first step in keeping our spiritual fervor and zeal for the Lord is sacrifice. Under the Old Covenant, people would bring their sacrifices and offerings to an altar and give them to the Lord. There were burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and trespass offerings. Some were required by God to be forgiven for sin and some were voluntary as a way to express gratitude and praise to God. All of them were to be the first and the best that the person had to offer; a sacrifice.
Giving to the Lord out of our excess or abundance is meaningless. It costs us nothing. God isn’t Goodwill. He doesn’t deserve our leftovers. He deserves to be given our very best; our firstfruits. It should be a sacrifice and not a convenience.
That is why we often share communion together. We want to remember that God held nothing back from us, but sacrificed, SACRIFICED, everything for us. Why should we return to Him anything less than our best?
2 Samuel 24:18-25
18 On that day Gad went to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming toward him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.
21 Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”
“To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped.”
22 Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 Your Majesty, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the Lord your God accept you.”
24 But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. 25 David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.
From a worldly, American perspective, we are always looking for a good deal. Here, David could have obeyed the Lord and not have to pay a penny for any of it. Araunah offered to give David his threshing floor along with the oxen to sacrifice and the wood to burn them with and everything he needed to build the altar to burn them on.
David refused what the world would consider a good deal and still obedience to God. David understood that God requires sacrificial obedience. It needed to cost him. He needed to feel it. God deserved it and so much more!
Under the New Covenant, we are called to be living sacrifices. We don’t sacrifice bulls, rams, lambs, or doves. We sacrifice ourselves. God deserves and is worthy of our best, our firstfruits, not our leftovers or what is convenient.
God doesn’t want us to be lukewarm. He wants us to be on fire for Him!
What does fire do? It consumes!
God wants us to be consumed by Him, baptized in fire by Him, burning bright for all to see.
What does fire require to keep burning?
Oxygen
Heat
Fuel
If any one of these three is removed, the fire will be stopped.
Oxygen – the Holy Spirit – the Breath of Life
Heat – God, Himself – He is an all-consuming fire
Fuel – a sacrifice – US
The heat and oxygen for us to stay on fire for God are constant and always available. The only variable that can affect it is how much of our lives we are willing to sacrifice. How passionately will we choose to pursue God? How much of our lives are we willing to surrender to the Holy Spirit?
A whole bag of marshmallows can sit on a table near the campfire and remain completely unchanged. It is only when they are moved closer and closer to the fire that they transform having that crispy outside and warm, creamy inside.
God remains unchanging. He is an all-consuming fire that never ceases and His zeal and His love toward us never changes. The variable is us.
James 4:8 (NKJV)
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Will we be content to remain at a distance from the Lord with the rest of the crowd? Or will we be ones bold and courageous who step out from the crowd and enter into the fire of God and be forever changed?
What we consume consumes us. It’s like the old adage, you are what you eat. What do we choose to hunger and thirst for? What do we choose to pursue in life? What do we spend ourselves on? Is it producing the joy and peace and endurance and goodness that we long for?
To stay zealous for God and grow our spiritual fervor, we begin with being a living sacrifice, then we move on to humble service.
Humble Service in the Body of Christ
3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
We were all born on purpose and for a purpose. God has intentionally designed and created us and placed us right when and where we were intended to be born. To find and fulfill our purpose in life, all that we need to do is simply be who we were created to be and do what we were created to do for others.
We need each other. As we use our gifts to serve one another, we become better together. We become more healthy, more complete, more whole.
As individual twigs and logs, we can go out into the dark world and bring the light and warmth of Christ to others. However, we will eventually burn out on our own. When we join together and humbly serve one another, we become a bonfire and we fan each other into flame so that we can go out again renewed and refreshed.
That’s why we join together each week. This is one of the purposes of what God created known as the church. We join together to press in and pursue God’s Presence, then we carry that fire of God out to wherever we go.
To stay zealous for God and grow our spiritual fervor, we begin with being a living sacrifice, then we move on to humble service. Lastly, we love through our actions.
Religion urges us to do the right things, but with the wrong motives. It is for the motive of conformity and acceptance by man. Everything that we do in life should be from a pure motive of love for God and love for others. Otherwise, even good deeds can become idols in our lives exalting ourselves instead of pointing people to God.
Love in Action
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Love overcomes! Love is unstoppable! Faith, hope, and love will eternally remain. The greatest of these three, however, is love. Good deeds done from this pure motive of loving God and loving others keeps the fire of God fanned into flame within our lives which nothing can snuff out!
To stay zealous for God and to grow our spiritual fervor, we begin with being a living sacrifice, then we move on to humble service, then we love through our actions.
These three things will burn away apathy and complacency. They move us from being lukewarm to being on fire for God. They move us deeper into the all-consuming Presence of God and enable us to be the salt and light that we are purposed to be.