Neither Cold Nor Hot

The Flame

This word to the Laodicean church names something worth taking with real seriousness, lukewarm, described here not as a moderate, acceptable middle ground, but as genuinely distasteful, worth Christ’s own striking, physical image, spue thee out, real, uncomfortable rejection of this specific spiritual temperature.

This is worth examining against however much your own love has settled into this exact lukewarm condition, neither genuinely cold, openly rejecting God, nor genuinely hot, actively, fervently pursuing him, but this described middle ground, technically present, technically faithful, but genuinely, uncomfortably lukewarm.

Notice I would thou wert cold or hot, a striking preference stated directly, suggesting genuine coldness, however seemingly worse, is actually preferable to this lukewarm condition, worth sitting with directly as a needed corrective against assuming lukewarm faithfulness is automatically safer or more acceptable than genuine coldness.

Whatever lukewarm condition you can honestly identify in your own current love for God, take this word with genuine seriousness today, not minimizing it as an acceptable middle ground, but naming it directly as this passage names it, worth actual, urgent attention, not comfortable, ongoing tolerance.