The Meaning of Lukewarmness Understood

[Gideon]

2 hours ago, Butero said:

I have mixed feelings about what you said.  First of all, let me get the disagreement out of the way.  I believe Romans 7 was speaking of the struggle Paul had and everyone does trying to fulfill the righteousness of the law without Jesus.  I don't believe Paul spent a single lukewarm day after his conversion.  I want to applaud you for preaching the remedy is available now and telling us what it is.  Thank you for that!  You are right.  I experienced the lukewarm walk.  It is miserable.  It is a continual struggle.  One night, I got fed up with it, and cried out to the Lord.  Something changed that night.  Wesley might call it sanctification.  Others might have another name, but since that night, it has been joy unspeakable and full of glory to where I can hardly contain it at times.   There are still temptations, but I have been given victory over them.  I know that part of your message to be true.  

That power has always existed, or at least back to Pentecost it has.  We just have to get serious with God, and make him first.  There must be a willingness to forsake everything that is dear to us, if need be, for the sake of the gospel.  My only concern about your message is that we don't need to be waiting on God to show up down the road to have this.  It will never come that way.  We must get serious about our walk, lay down all of our idols at the foot of the cross, and cry out to God till we are walking in victory.  Other than disagreeing with you over Paul being lukewarm as a Christian, I agree with much of the OP.

Thanks for your comments, Butero. It excties me that you have tasted of the freedom Christ offers. It changes everything. If I came across that I believed Paul was lukewarm at one point, please know that I do not. But I do suspect that following his conversion, as powerful as it was, he may have still wrestled with the question as to HOW to obey the Lord in all things.

Paul  had been under the law, and then out from under it. But being fred from the grip of the law is only part of the battle. We have to also be freed from the mentality that we have to do it in our effort. Self effort to try to hit a standard is “the law” for us gentiles. We want to do God’s will. We can’t. We want to avoid evil. We don’t. Where is the answer to this dilemma? He had just shared it in the previous chapter. And what was it? Reckoning oneself dead to sin! Oir old man is dead!

You see, for us, like the Jews,  we are not freed from our “law” until we die too. And like the Jews under the law, we too find thst the strength of sin is the law. How do we get free from sin? We get free from the law.  And how do we get freed from the grip of our law....self effort? No! We have to die. And praise God, that is why reckoning our old nature as dead is critical in our battle with sin.

When we do that, believing what we have been told that we KNOW as true in Romans 6, our wilderness journey of unbelief is over. Our faith in God’s promise ofour new nature may be small at first, it may waver a time or two, but God WILL establish us in the faith and with that faith established in the truth comes the victory we all long for. 

Again, thank you for your words. They blessed me immeasurably. 

Blessings, 

Gideon

 

 

[Gideon]

3 hours ago, Yowm said:

All I am saying is that God's truth found in the Scriptures comes above all private revelations, dreams, visions, church councils, decrees of men, popes, pastors and any other thing which exalts itself above God's Word and should be tested by such. You should not be offended  when others test your 'revelations', that is a duty of the Christian.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (2Co 10:3-5)

 but test everything; hold fast what is good. (1Th 5:21)
 

Brother, I agree with you. Ihave never said otherwise. But at times, we know in part and do not see the whole picture. Rhink of Peter with his vision from God telling him that the gentiles too were to be partakers of the new covenant. Jesus had not shared this to him. So... he resisted. Until God convinced him. And probably only then did he see in scripture that the teuth of the gentiles too being blessed by the messiah was indeed scriptural. 

I ask all, you included, to weigh what I am sharing against His word. If red flags go off, that does not mean to automatically reject it, but simply to dig deeper. it requires further investigation. I suspect that the other disciples had some hard words for Peter after his “revelation”, don’t you?  lol. 

Blessings, Yowm

Gideon

[Heleadethme]

3 hours ago, Yowm said:

All I am saying is that God's truth found in the Scriptures comes above all private revelations, dreams, visions, church councils, decrees of men, popes, pastors and any other thing which exalts itself above God's Word and should be tested by such. You should not be offended  when others test your 'revelations', that is a duty of the Christian.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; (2Co 10:3-5)

 but test everything; hold fast what is good. (1Th 5:21)
 

God still gives "private revelations", that's for sure, we just need to seek Him both to confirm (test) and also to understand what He is saying.  When He pins it to His word then we have clarity and firm ground to stand on, for ourselves as well as to share with others.  If we mix it too much with our own thoughts, it can get a bit cloudy....but in the light of His word it becomes sharp and clear.

[Gideon]

The subject of lukewarmness is a difficult one. It hits too close to home for many people, and I understand that. It is not pleasant when someone suggests you may be lukewarm, and if the only definition was number one in my OP, I can see why it would be hard to swallow. 

But with definition number two coming into play, hopefully people will see that this one resembles their life a lot closer. I know most here truly love the Lord. Their hearts are towards Him, and during worship, the bond and affection is obvious. But for many, and I was one for years.... heck, decades....the other six days of the week did not resemble Sunday mornings. We get busy with OUR lives, our wants, our goals, our dreams, our issues, our pet sins, and our relationship is not nearly as strong. He is still our savior, but He is not our ever present help in time of need.... because we don’t think we are in need of His presence and protection every single day. Is this not the truth for many here? 

Let us remember that our God loves us, and He is a jealous God. He does not want to be wanted only for what He can give us He longs to be wih us in every thing we do. That is why He hates lukewarmness. For the lukewarm, His relationship with us is on again/ off again and He loves us too much to let that happen.

Husbands, think for a minute. If the only time you showed any real interest in your wife was when sex was on the table (not literally, lol), how do you think your wife would feel about that? 

Wifes, if the only time you showed any real interest in your hubby was when he suggested you go shopping on Saturday while he watched the kids, do you think he might feel slighted?  Our God is no different. And He has a real workable solution, a WONDERFUL solution to change the way every single one of us interact individually with Him. But first, we have to admit there is a problem, and that our hearts  indeed do drift from Him far to often. 

I know it is hard to come to the place that we admit we need a fresh awakening, but God promises that if we will do so, He will bless us beyond what we now even think is possible.

Blessings to all,

Gideon

[Gideon]

10 minutes ago, Yowm said:

They most likely did, unless they were guided by God's previous promises in His Word concerning the Gentiles.

O praise the LORD, all ye nations (Gentiles): praise him, all ye people.
(Psa 117:1)

And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
(Isa 60:3)
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
(Psa 22:27)
...and so many more.

Agreed. But evidently Peter was not, or he would have not protested to God as he did. 

Love you brother, 

Gideon

[Gideon]

7 minutes ago, Yowm said:

Private revelations I believe are for private edification. Any 'private revelation' for public consumption would be nothing new, but only a teaching what God had intended from His Word all along. Martin Luther's revelation of 'the just shall live by faith' is an example of this. It was God's Word coming alive to an individual that the whole world needed to rediscover.

I agree! Do we  not think God wants us all to know that we can stop trying to improve our old nature, or attempt to kill it by self effort and instead to reckon it dead to sin’s power? This is just s important as that truth.....faith in His promises applied to US...NOW. 

We too as a whole need to rediscover those truths of who we are in Christ, because when we do, satan is then in deep trouble in our lives. And as we as a whole awaken to what we have walked wirh as head knowledge rather than as our shields of faith that allow us to stare back a satan and rebuff his attack with “It is written...”, everything changes, both individually, and corporately. Thos is the awakwnong of which I speak and our reckoning of ourselves as dead to sin is our lighting our lamps. 

Blessings, 

Gids

 

[Gideon]

15 minutes ago, Yowm said:

That is an obvious given with even a cursory reading of Romans. Problem is, today many Christians shy away from looking into God's Word for answers. They'd rather go to self help manuals, new age gurus or the latest Hollywood's so called 'Christian' flick and  get their theology from there.

That is the awakening of which I speak.

Brother, on this we agree. But a lot of the blame must fall on the leaders in our churches. In the book of Acts, the apostles said it was not right for them to leave ministry and to have to wait tables. They said “We will give ourselves continually to prayer and ministry of the word.” Not exactly common nowadays, eh? 

I do not know how it was for you thirty five years ago, but for me,  in most charismatic churches back in the 70’s and 80’s, everyone came to church with highlighters and well worn dog-eared Bibles, and the pages were so marked it looked like someone was teying out different pens with different colored ink. That is a rare sight today as most pastors teach an entire sermon on one scripture verse... with a lot of colorful and amusing stories, of course. So there’s that. 

Pastors today, far too many of them at least, do not teach rheir aheep how to dig into the Word for themselves and to develope the skill of rightly dividing the word of God. 

You realize, of course, we are  actually on the same page here, my brother?  A miracle!

blessings to you Yowm, 

Gideon

[Heleadethme]

1 hour ago, Yowm said:

Private revelations I believe are for private edification. Any 'private revelation' for public consumption would be nothing new, but only a teaching what God had intended from His Word all along. Martin Luther's revelation of 'the just shall live by faith' is an example of this. It was God's Word coming alive to an individual that the whole world needed to rediscover.

My last post from earlier might have got lost in the shuffle....I agree with your comment here....there is nothing new under the sun (though there are some things in scripture that are sealed until the end).  Anything the Lord speaks to us that is for the Body of Christ as a whole, and is not personal type of guidance or instruction.....is in scripture somewhere.  That is how it is tested and either confirms what the Lord is revealing, or set aside.  We must seek that confirmation before we can stand on it.....we can't really share something that is for others without giving them scriptural confirmation.  Because even while a believer might be confident they know the Shepherd's voice in dream, vision or still small voice etc, others can only verify what another person has heard when it agrees with scripture, because they didn't receive the word/revelation themselves directly to be able to discern "His voice".

[Not me]

6 hours ago, Gideon said:

You asked if a carnal Christian is a lukewarm Christian. It is an excellent question. Let’s recall the children of Israel on the exodus to the promised land. There was no getting around the wilderness. They had to pass through it, and so do we. For them, it was to be a three week journey, but because of unbelief, it took rhem forty years instead. They were undoubtedly God’s children, bur they were ‘carnal’ as they left Egypt. So too, when we leave the world behimd and bcome God’s children, there is a wilderness period thst we mist pass through and as we do, we too are carnal believers. 

But here is what happened to the Israelites. They were filled with fear rather than faith when confronted with the fact that there were giants in THEIR land that God had already given them. And what happened. They turned back into the wilderness to live out their lives. They were still God’s children. He still supernaturally kept them with water from rocks and manna every morning. But..... they never enjoyed their inheritance. Why? Unbelief. They remained carnal, when that was never God’s plan for them. 

And guess what? We too have turned a designated short journey through the wilderness as carnal children of God, into a lifelong journey. God is still with us. We are healed, but only slightly. We too have been robbed of our birthright by our unbelief, and thus, when we should be standing as overcomers of the world, rhe flesh and the devil, instead we are prey for the enemy to bind us, even when the prison doors have been thrown wide open. Thus we have remained carnal, fleshly, and believe it is impossible for God to actually ‘cause us’ to walk in full victory. 

This is all about to change. We have a promised land to take.... in this life..... and every step we take will be ours. Glory to God! We, God’s people, His bride, are about to see ourselves prepared to meet our brodegroom!

Blessings, brother. 

Gids

I remember this story. It would so seem that unbelief did keep them out of the promised land. Than that brings up another question;

What  caused there unbelief? 

Was it, their fear of the giants in the land? Or was it they still, in their hearts wanted to go back to Egypt? 

Which in modern terms would be, still in love with the world. Or  still in love with themselves (self). Which I think would translate,  to still not seeing themselves as fallen in their entirely and in need of a total and complete salvation. 

You do bring up some quite interesting questions?? 

Much love in Christ, Not me

[Gideon]

47 minutes ago, Yowm said:

Paul labored night and day with his hands that he might not be an offense before others. So different from today.

 

Yes, it was then and still is to a certain extent where I go. Except today it is more IPads, IPhones and chargers just in case.

 

It depends. Theologically conservative Churches stick closer to the Word; theologically liberal churches tend to take hold of the latest fad coming down the pike and blending in with the world so as to not make waves or offend.

As they say, a clock is right twice a day. lol

Wow! We get to look forward to another one before midnight! All hail blind chipmunk day! ?