We moved house this week and it turns out that hot water isn’t really a ‘thing’ in our new place. Trying to wash up, bath children, have a shower with no hot water is somewhat challenging. This led me to two thoughts:

1. Thankfulness. How incredible that I have water that flows out of a tap. Regardless of temperature, there are too many who don’t know this luxury. I must pray more for those who don’t have the extravagance of #firstworldproblems.
2. If something is supposed to be hot and it’s not, or if it’s supposed to be cold and it’s not, then that’s no good. Jesus had some thoughts on this.

In Revelation, Jesus tells the church in Laodicea that he knows they are “neither hot nor cold”, and in fact, their lukewarmness will result in being spat out from his mouth (3:15-16). This imagery would have hit hard to the Christians of Laodicea. Their city had a poor water supply. The hot water came via aqueduct from the hot springs of northern Hierapolis six miles away. 11 miles away in the south, melted snow from the Colossae mountains provided their cold water. By the time the water reached Laodicea it was neither hot nor cold, it was lukewarm.

Lukewarm signifies indifference, compromise, “meh-ness” one might say. It’s neither hot, nor cold. It’s not fit for either healing or refreshing. We need to stop living lukewarm lives. Lukewarm living lulls us into false security. You think you’re fine trundling along in life because you’re not feeling the cold and so you forget your need of him, but neither are you hot and on fire.

Lukewarm is not how Jesus works and we’re supposed to be his disciples. He’s not a mediocre, half-hearted, indifferent God. He is the God who will always love you with a “never-stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love” (The Jesus Storybook Bible). There’s nothing lukewarm about His pursuit of you, do you think maybe we could at least try and return the favour?!