The Handle is on Your Side - One Year Devotions for Women

“But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!” - Revelation 3:16

The people who went to church in Laodicea were respectable, wealthy, skin-deep Christians. They appeared to have taken a lukewarm bath of religion.

The city of Laodicea got its water from nearby hot springs, which became lukewarm by the time the city dwellers put it to use. The tasteless, tepid water made a disgusting drink—not cold enough to refresh, not hot enough to give warmth. The Lord Jesus knew the believers in Laodicea would understand him when he accused them of being lukewarm. The Greek words for hot and cold are emphatic, meaning boiling and frigid. God would have us boiling or freezing toward him, but he des-pises those who are merely tepid.

When we are lukewarm, we think we “don’t need a thing” (Revelation 3:17)—but we are in need of everything. We are really spiritually impoverished, yet we count ourselves religion-rich and think ourselves “mature.” It is so easy to be lukewarm. All we have to do is nothing. No growing, no going, no knowing, no sowing! That will do it.

But Jesus would not have it so. Listen—God is counseling his own. Lukewarm we might be, but God wants us either hot or cold.

Jesus stands at the door of every lukewarm heart. He wants to come into our life and bring his cup of rejoicing with him. He would meet us inside our shallow spirituality and heat our cooling ardor into bright flames of love. Open the door—the handle is on your side.

For Further Study: Revelation 3:14-22

Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.

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