Profile of the Lukewarm:

1) Lukewarm people attend church fairly regularly either because it’s expected of them or because they like the people there. It’s what “good Christians” do.

2) Lukewarm people give money and time to the church as long as it doesn’t impinge on their standard of living. If they have a little extra and it’s easy and safe to give, they do so.

3) Lukewarm people tend to choose what is popular over what is right in conflict. They want to fit in both inside the church and outside of it. They care more about what people think of their actions than what God thinks of their heart.

4) Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want to be saved from the penalty for their sin. They don’t genuinely hate sin and are not truly sorry for it; they’re merely sorry because God is going to punish them.

5) Lukewarm people are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act. They assume such action is for “extreme” Christians, not average ones. These people call “radical” what Jesus expected of all of his followers.

6) People rarely share their faith with their neighbors, coworkers, or friends. They do not want to be rejected, nor do they want to make people uncomfortable by talking about private issues like religion.

7) Lukewarm people love God, but they don’t love him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. They would be quick to assure you that they try to love God that much but that sort of devotion is only for pastors and missionaries and radicals.

8) Lukewarm people want pastors that will point out to them their gifts, but not pastors who will point out to them their sin.

9) Lukewarm people are continually concerned with safety and comfort. This focus on safe living keeps them from sacrificing and risking for God.

10) Lukewarm people ask:

“How far can I go before it’s considered a sin?” instead of “How can I keep myself pure as a temple of God’s Spirit?”

“How much do I have to give?” instead of “How much can I give?”

“How much time should I spend praying and reading my Bible?” instead of “I wish I didn’t have to go to work so I could sit here and be with God longer.”

Perhaps we all need to examine ourselves and make sure our love for God far exceeds our love for all other people, relationships and things. May we all be transformed into believers who have a Crazy Love!

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:25-26 ESV

What has happened to Truth in our day? Where did we lose out? Where did we go wrong? What has become the malady that best describes why we are on the wrong track? This arena of lies and falsehood, where we are risking the whole next generation with a false sense of entitlements… Skepticism is the hallmark of university education today. You can go to campus after campus and they deny the very possibility of knowing. Fascinating isn’t it? You come out of a university education, at the end of it, basically saying, “You cannot believe anything, you cannot know anything.” Intent is prior to content. Question is: does this generation really want truth? Revelation replaced by reason, truth subverted by agnosticism, rationalism fails, existentialism fails, and lastly, the propositional is replaced by the visual. This is possibly the darkest reality of our time. So …the young scholar sitting before the professorial lectern is absolutely convinced that truth is merely relative. And, what has happened is he has lost sight of the fact of what Jesus said about the eye. He said let your eye be single. The eye is the lamp of the body. William Blake put it in these words, “This life’s dim windows of the soul distorts the heavens from pole to pole and goads you to believe a lie when you see with and not through the eye.” We are meant to see through the eye with the conscious. We are being taught to see with the eye devoid of conscious. And, in reality nothing is so beautiful as the good. Nothing so monotonous and boring as evil. But in our imagination it’s the other way around. Fictional good is boring and flat. Fictional evil is varied, intriguing, attractive and full of charm. The poles have been reversed. Good has become boring. Evil has become intriguing. If you don’t believe me, put on the Sermon on the Mount on television tomorrow night, watch the ratings drop. The day after tomorrow put on David and Bathsheba and watch the ratings climb; because in our imagination evil is intriguing and full of charm.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.