Neither Cold Nor Hot

I Know Your Deeds

 

Revelation 3:14-16 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“14To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Originator of God’s creation. 15I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other! 16So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to vomit you out of My mouth!”

 

What does it look like to be spiritually lukewarm? It means you are neither on fire for the Lord nor are you completely opposed to Him. You believe in His existence. You believe that Jesus Christ died on a cross to save us from our sins and to give us eternal life with God. You believe that one day Jesus will return to judge the world and to take His followers to be with Him for eternity. And since that is what you believe, you are convinced that you now have salvation from sin and eternal life with God guaranteed you. Wrong!

 

Why is that wrong? Because it is head knowledge only. And it is not the whole story. For Jesus Christ, in His death and resurrection, put our sins to death with Him so that, by faith in Him, we will deny self, die with Him to sin, and now walk with Him in obedience to His commands in holy living and no longer as slaves to sin. He died and rose from the dead to deliver us out of our addiction to sin so that we will now serve Him with our lives and so we will do His will, and so we will be those who are sharing Him with the world.

 

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to Him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) Him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to His commands, in His power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls Him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

 

You Do Not Realize

 

Revelation 3:17-19 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“17You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, white garments so that you may be clothed and your shameful nakedness not exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19Those I love I rebuke and discipline. Therefore be earnest and repent.”

 

There are many people on this earth professing faith in Jesus Christ who are convinced that all that is necessary is that they make a verbal profession of faith in Jesus Christ and that now all their sins are forgiven and heaven is guaranteed them for eternity, but regardless of how they live. But that is a lie from hell! But many of them have also been told that they do not have to obey God and His commands, and they do not have to repent of (die to) their sins, for they are being told that God’s grace covers it all. Nope! Nada!

 

For God’s grace, which is bringing us salvation, is training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age (see Titus 2:11-14). And God’s grace is what sent Jesus Christ to the cross to put our sins to death with Him so that we will die to sin and obey our Lord in daily practice (see Romans 6:1-23). So, if all we do is give lip service to God, but we do not deny self, die to sin, and follow Him in obedience to His commands, we are not His (see 1 John 1-3).

 

So, if you are convinced that you have all that is needed to be a “Christian” and to have eternal life with God, but you have not denied self, died to sin, and you are not obeying God and His commands in life practice, you need to study the Scriptures taught in the correct biblical context to learn the truth of what the Scriptures actually teach. And then you need to bow the knee to God, die with Him to sin, and now follow Him in obedience to His commands – all in the power of God, by the grace of God, or you don’t have life in Him.

 

Open The Door!

 

Revelation 3:20-22 BSB (Berean Standard Bible)

 

“20Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me. 21To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

 

Jesus Christ is addressing His nearly apostate church here, i.e. His idolatrous and adulterous church which has pushed Him out the door so that they could live however they want without guilt and without remorse. For they willfully, consciously, and in practice have denied Him as Lord (Owner-Master) of their lives, and they have chosen a different path to follow other than the one God laid out for them to follow. They have abandoned the ways of righteousness and holiness in order that they might continue in sin without conscience.

 

And so Jesus is knocking at the door of this church and He is asking to be invited back inside, but not as a guest, and not as a spectator, but as KING of their lives! For, although many do not recognize that this is what is happening, Jesus Christ has been pushed out of probably most gatherings of what are called “churches” here in the USA. For so many of them have rejected Him and His teachings and they have invited the world and worldly ways into “the church” in order to attract the world to their gatherings.

 

So to open the door of the church (not the physical door of a building), and to let Jesus back inside, will thus require a true spiritual revival of all that is called “church,” which will involve the people truly repenting of (dying to) their sins and now submitting their lives and their gatherings to the Lord to obey Him and His commands, and to walk in His ways, and to conduct His church biblically, according to the teachings of the Scriptures, and not according to the ways of man. Then He will have fellowship with them.

 

To all who obey our Lord and His teachings, they will have forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God. So die to sin and obey God from now on.

 

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

 

Neither Cold Nor Hot

An Original Work / October 13, 2026

Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

 

As the Deer

 

By Martin J. Nystrom

Based off Psalm 42:1

 

As the deer panteth for the water

So my soul longeth after You

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

 

You alone are my strength, my shield

To You alone may my spirit yield

You alone are my heart's desire

And I long to worship You

 

[A Prayer of Devotion to God Alone]