Prayer for the Lukewarm

 

Dear Lord, You say You will spit them out of your mouth. 

I think it surprises us. We would expect being cold to You would be worse. But not.

Father, I think it's that "cold" is not deceptive, because it's definite. Like "hot," it's extreme. Unmistakable. Those who hate You, want nothing to do with You, don't believe in You, even blaspheme You, can turn. So can the hot who are hot in the wrong way; and maybe such people can be hot and cold at the same time. Saul, after all, hot for the Pharisees yet cold for Christ, became Paul.

But the lukewarm have that little bit of warmth. They are neither/nor, and that is deceptive. Also comfortable, something You've never promised following You will be.

Perhaps they've checked a box. "I believe in Jesus; I'm going to heaven," but no desire to please You is evident in them. No picking up their cross, no saying no to the things You say no to, continuing to live with their own plans and opinions as their guide. Or perhaps they're philanthropic, giving to the poor, honest in their dealings, affirming every lifestyle, labeled a "good Christian example" by the world, when what they're really doing is approving of sin (Romans 1) and preaching a different Jesus. Or perhaps they attend church regularly as part of their weekly schedule, and believe that makes the difference, thinking membership in an institution determines who reaches heaven. Or perhaps they say they try to obey Jesus' teachings, which they interpret as being a good person and judging no one, when they have no real idea of the hard things Jesus taught, when judgment applies, or that the main point isn't the teachings but the death and resurrection they need for themselves. 

Lukewarmness is the temperature mostly likely to lull people to think they're "in" when maybe they're not; lukewarmness is noncommittal, unbothered, trying to be two things and achieving neither. Hot and cold are far less easy to mistake, including for the hot or cold person in question. In a very real sense, hot and cold are both closer to You than lukewarm is, because lukewarm is the place of stuck. The place of oblivious. The place of "I didn't know anything needed to change" and "But I'm fine--aren't I?"

Father, help us all--hot, cold, or lukewarm--because none of us will ever reach a place where we can say, "I got this, God." But I pray especially here for the lukewarm, the ones who don't realize or don't care to face that merely being Jesus-adjacent in some way might still cost them their soul. Oh Lord, there are too many of them on the wide road to destruction. You said the way is narrow and few find it. Oh, I believe the new heavens and new earth will be full of people who are Yours--yet a fraction of all who ever lived. Jesus said no one can come to Him unless You draw them. Draw them, Father. In these last days of grace, draw them.

I've prayed a lot about them. May I never be so proud that I think it's "all those others" who don't have You. But Father, given the choice of hot, cold, and lukewarm, I choose hot. Help me, every step of the way, to make that choice true.