John 10:22-42
2 Chronicles 9
Psalm 74
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Thoughts and Commentary on Today's Reading
Today, I'd like to start off with a couple of questions: "Where are you, spiritually? What is your spiritual temperature?"In the following diagram, where would you place yourself? Choose the one that truly best describes your current spiritual temperature:
Are you blue? To be blue means that your spiritual temperature is cold. In this state, there is no spiritual life at all. If you are in the blue, you have no prayer life, no relationship with God at all. You love the things of the world and the things of God are foreign (or boring) to you. Are you blue?
Red: Spiritually Hot
Are you red? To be red means that your spiritual temperature is hot. In this state, you are fully alive and thriving in your spiritual life. If you are in the red, you have an effective and fervent prayer life, you daily spend time with God and a deep and real relationship with God. You love what He loves and spending time with Him is a great joy. You abide in Him 24/7. Are you red?
Purple: Spiritually Lukewarm
Are you purple? To be purple means that your spiritual temperature is a mix. In this state, you are have some spiritual life, but you honestly know that it isn't what it could be - in fact your spiritual relationship with God isn't what it should be. If you are in the purple, you have an on-again/off-again prayer life, you spend time with God, but it isn't consistent. You want to be saved - you want to spend Eternity with God, but you honestly don't want to spend time with Him now - in fact spending time with Him every day is difficult. If you're really honest about it, self is on the throne of your heart more often than Yahweh. Are you purple?
A youth pastor lead a huge youth group of nearly 100 young adults and teens. He asked them how they would rate their youth group. Since it was an active youth group, the young members were quite enthusiastic about it. "It's a great youth group," they cheered.
But then the pastor asked them how they would rate their own personal relationship with God - asking them to place themselves in the diagram shown above - do you know where they placed themselves? It probably won't surprise you to learn that when they were asked this question that every single one of them placed themselves as "purple".
The pastor then responded by saying, "Let me tell what God thinks of your youth group." With that the Pastor read Revelation 3:15-16:
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue (vomit - it makes God sick!) thee out of My Mouth."Talk about a spiritual reality check!
So where are you? If you honestly found that you had to place yourself in the purple category, thank you for being so honest! Please don't feel that I'm pointing any fingers. The truth is that most Christians are spiritually in the purple. I've struggled with having a terrible case of the purples myself, many times. But wouldn't you agree that its time for a change? Wouldn't you like to be in the red?
If we're going to spend Eternity with God in the future, we need to prepare by spending daily moments worshiping Him now. We can't expect to have Eternity with Him, if we can't even find it in our hearts to want to have worship each day. The truth is that how we live now is preparing us for how we will be - There.
We start now - our relationship with God for the future is largely determined by what we are doing now. As Job said:
Job 22:21 "Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee."To get to really know God now requires us to tune in to Him. We need to spend time in His Word - and communing with Him in prayer. Our prayers need to be specific, real, praise-filled - and not rote prayers. When our prayers are generic, our relationship with God is generic.
It's time to let go of the goatishness and seek His transformation into sheep. In John 10:27-28, we find a powerful statement - a reality - which helps us see what it takes to be a real sheep:
John 10:27-28 - "My sheep hear My Voice, and I know them (this means they are acquainted with Him - Job 22:21) and they follow Me: And I give unto them Eternal Life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My Hand."Everyone in Heaven will be in the red. Heaven begins here and now.
