Revelation 3:14-16

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. 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

So often that these verses are preached at churches and most of the time it is related to how passionate we are for God or how much work we are willing to do for God. I am sure most of you know what I am talking about if you grew up in church since you were young or even recently. Thank God, that He keeps revealing the truth to us through His Spirit in us and thank God for good teachings. I honestly believe that every time we read something in the Bible, we HAVE (i know the word ‘have’ is a strong word, but i am sure you agree with me on this one) to relate it back to WHAT Jesus HAS DONE on our behalf. The Spirit that gives us the revelation lives in us, so I believe He will give revelations after revelations to us as we go through the scriptures. Let’s believe that the veil that prevents us seeing Jesus on the Bible is lifted up.

Back to the verses, I honestly believe that the verses are not about works or actions toward God but they are about Grace and Law. Let’s dig in to it, The word ‘HOT’ has always been pictured as a Christian or a believer that is passionate or “working hard” for Jesus and the word ‘COLD’ has often been pictured as a Christian that does not do much work for Jesus or passive. The truth is that, there is NOTHING we can do for Jesus because Jesus has DONE EVERYTHING on our behalf on the cross! I know you might be asking, but the Bible says we need to Go and make disciples of all nations. That is true and I 100% agree on that, but doing good is a fruit. The Bible says ‘each tree is recognized by its own fruit’ (Luke 6:44). I believe every believer or Christ follower will end up doing good and making a world a better place if they understand how much they are LOVED by God. Love of God is like a fertilizer and fresh water for us and the more we listen to the Word of God (which according to John 1:1 is Jesus Himself), the more we will become a good tree with strong roots. The only thing that a good tree will produce is good fruits and in quantity. The same with a healthy believer in Christ

Paul says in Philippians 3:8, “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them RUBBISH, that I may gain Christ” Paul was saying that all his law keeping and religious doings in his life, he considered them all as RUBBISH. The word rubbish in Greek actually means excrement of animals or poo! That is a strong word and I believe Paul meant to use that word to make a point. Amongst the pharisee, Paul was probably the best one of them all, think about what he says here. Everything that he thought was giving him the right standing with God or pleasing to God, he considered them all as a poo? That sounds very harsh, don’t you think? But that is the Truth and the Truth will set you free (John 8:32).

Let’s pause and think about it and let the Holy Spirit minister to you.

Let’s go back to Revelation 3:14-16 again. If these verses are really about works and actions. Why then God would spit his people out of His mouth if you are Lukewarm? To me, the word Lukewarm is still warmer than being Cold?! Which means that being Lukewarm does more work than being Cold, isn’t that right?

I honestly believe that the verses are about LAW and GRACE. God would either want you to be HOT which is totally under GRACE or COLD which is totally under the LAW. When you are under the LAW, the LAW will bring you to a point where you have done everything and you cannot do it and you need a SAVIOUR which is Jesus Christ in your life! The word Lukewarm is a picture of MIXED theology, it is when GRACE and LAW are being mixed together. We often hear,well you cannot preach too much on the subject of Grace because people will go out and sin, you need Grace and a little bit of condemnation (the Law) which make it BALANCE. the Law is not just 10 commandments, but the Law is the mentality that believe by what we do we will become. But BALANCE is not what God wants, there is no balance in Grace and Law, only Grace and Grace alone will drive away sins.

Grace is not a license to sin but Grace is the only thing that will produce good fruits in our lives, because Grace is not a subject but it is Jesus Himself. The Law will condemn you and makes you think that you are a failure, but Grace always lifting you up and makes you succeed in life because He loves you so much.

Selah…

JESUS plus SOMETHING equals NOTHING
JESUS plus NOTHING equals EVERYTHING

Stay blessed

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