Friday, September 22, 2017, 2:52 a.m. – The Lord Jesus put in mind the song “Seek the Lord.” Speak, Lord, your words
to my heart. I read Revelation 3:14-22
(NASB).
Complacent
(vv. 14-16)
“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning
of the creation of God, says this:
‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot;
I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot
nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.
Complacent –
“marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of
actual dangers or deficiencies” (M-W).
The speaker is Jesus Christ.
And, he is addressing his complacent church. They are neither totally indifferent
to the Lord nor are they fully on fire (passionate, enthusiastic) for him. They
are somewhere in between the two, fully content with mediocrity, self-absorption,
and fundamentally unconcerned about their spiritual conditions or their
relationships with the ONLY true God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are
worldly, and are living not much different from those who make no profession to
faith in Jesus Christ at all. And, they are followers of man more than they are
followers of God; more caught up in forms of religion rather than having a
passionate, faithful and vital relationship with their Lord, Savior and King.
The sad reality of it all,
though, is that this type of Christianity is being encouraged and promoted in
today’s modern churches. They are being taught that God does everything for us,
and that nothing is required of us at all other than some non-descript “faith”
in Jesus Christ, but not the kind of faith Jesus taught, or that his NT
apostles taught. Some of their leaders even go so far as to discourage
repentance and obedience to Christ, in order to appease human flesh, and to
gain disciples after themselves. They want to make everyone feel good about
themselves, even in their sins, and to not offend anyone with the truth, and so
they lie to their congregations and they lead them to follow humans, and they
encourage worldly living.
So, what we have are a whole
lot of people who bear the name “Christian” but who don’t reflect Christ in
their attitudes, actions or thinking, and who think God is ok with them being
that way, because that is what is being modeled to them by many of their
leaders. So, they may or may not spend any time in God’s Word or in prayer, throughout
their day, and God may or may not get a bare acknowledgment from them, and
their free time will often be spent doing what THEY want to do, and not what
GOD has for them. And, many of them are convinced that their lives are their
own to live how they want as long as they give God some of their time and
offerings, and many of them, too, are engrossed in being entertained continuously.
Counsel (vv.
17-18)
Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy,
and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and
miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold
refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may
clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and
eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
Counsel – recommend,
advocate, encourage, guide, instruct, or warn; to give advice to (someone); to
suggest or recommend (something) (M-W).
Jesus loves his church, even
the church which is half-hearted in their devotion to him, or who have forsaken
their first love, or who have a reputation of being alive but are mostly dead,
etc. Yet, this does not mean he is ok with them remaining in those conditions,
or that he doesn’t have something better and necessary for them, or that he won’t
chastise them in order to move their hearts back to him in purity of love and
devotion. He will! He said so, and he is true to his Word. So, he urges, counsels,
encourages, teaches, and stimulates them towards what is good for them, and he
warns them against what is bad for them, and in order to move them to
repentance, to renewed faith in him, and to faithful and passionate obedience
to him and to His Word.
The counsel here is basically
for them to move from their self-sufficiency to finding their all-sufficiency
in God alone. It is also to do a self-examination and to see their own spiritual
condition through God’s eyes, and through the scope of God’s Word, rather than
through the lens of human thinking and reasoning. They think they are ok just
how they are, because their itching ears longed to hear smooth, pleasing
messages which told them that they could continue in sin and still have the
blessings of God in their lives. But, God is not ok with them continuing in a
sinful course, and this kind of thinking isn’t reflective of what the Bible
teaches, either. So, Jesus desires that they know what his Word teaches, and
that they now obey it.
So, what is Jesus’ counsel to
them, in reality? It is that they purify their hearts via repentance (turning
from sin to God) and via obedience to him and to his commands, and that they
walk (conduct their lives) in the Spirit and no longer according to (in
agreement with) their flesh (sin natures). It is that they die daily to sin and
self, and that they live to Christ and to his righteousness. And, it is that
they make Jesus Christ truly Lord (owner-master) of their lives, and that they
become his bond-servants. It is also that they now see life through God’s eyes
and no longer through the eyes of humankind and the flesh, and that they follow
what is truth and reject the lies and the deceptions of humans who would lead
them astray.
Convince
(vv. 19-22)
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore
be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears
My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and
he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My
throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who
has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
Convince - to
bring (as by argument) to belief, consent, or a course of action; to persuade
(sway, convert, win over) (M-W).
This is a lot like a lawyer’s closing
arguments where he must convince the jury to vote in favor of the verdict he
proposed based upon the evidence he presented to them of the facts of the case.
This is the turning point in the argument, where now a choice must be made, and
a person’s future must be determined. Only, in this case, the ones being persuaded
here to make a resolution are actually the ones on trial, and they must make
the decision concerning their own destiny, whether or not they will choose to
follow Jesus or shut the door in his face for eternity.
And, although Jesus is still being
loving and gentle, he is warning them of the dangers of making the wrong
choice. He is letting them know that he will chastise and reprove them, and so
he urges them to turn from their sins of complacency, idolatry and spiritual
adultery, and to return to him as their ONLY God and LORD. Although they have
mostly rejected him and his Lordship over their lives, he has not rejected
them. He is still calling out to them, still counseling, loving, urging and
warning, and reminding them of what he did for them in dying on a cross so they
could be free from sin. And, he is still inviting them into fellowship with
him, if they will just open the doors of their hearts to him and let him be
LORD of their lives.
And, so true to God, and to his nature,
and to how he consistently has dealt with his rebellious children, down through
the ages, he always offers the opportunity for restoration and renewal in
relationship with him to the one who will turn from his sin and will turn to
follow Jesus Christ with his or her life, and who will reject his or her idols
to make Jesus his or her ONLY God. His message is most always to first confront
us with our sins, then to warn of the consequences of our sin, then to call for
repentance, and then to promise restoration and renewal for the penitent.
Yet, we must know here that if we
choose to reject his voice, and to continue on our own course of living for sin
and self, following after our own fleshly desires, while ignoring his counsel,
that we won’t have the promise of heaven when we leave this earth, but a
fearful expectation of eternal punishment in the fires of hell (Lu. 9:23-26;
Ro. 8:1-17; Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Jn. 1:6). So, what will it be? Choose wisely,
because your future depends on it.
Seek the Lord / An
Original Work / July 20, 2012
Based off Isaiah 55
“Come to Me all you who thirst; come to
waters.
Listen to Me, and eat what’s good
today,
And your soul will delight in richest
of fare.
Give ear to Me, and you will live.
I have made an eternal covenant with
you.
Wash in the blood of the Lamb.”
Seek the Lord while He may be found;
call on Him.
Let the wicked forsake his way, in
truth.
Let him turn to the Lord, and he will
receive mercy.
Freely, God pardons him.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,”
declares the Lord, our God.
“My word that goes out of My mouth is
truthful.
It will not return to Me unfulfilled.
My word will accomplish all that I
desire,
And achieve the goal I intend.
You will go in joy, and be led forth in
peace.
The mountains will burst into song…
before you,
And all of the trees clap their hands.”
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