These are the notes from a sermon and from Crazy Love by Francis Chan (great book, go read it!)
Practical Atheist: Someone who believes in God but lives as if He doesn’t exist.
Lukewarm Christians:
- Crave acceptance from other people.
- Rarely share their faith in Christ.
- Do whatever it takes to alleviate their guilt.
- Think more about life on Earth than eternity in Heaven.
- Gauge their morality by comparing themselves to other people.
- Want to be saved from the penalty of sin without changing their ways.
- Only turn to God when they are in a bind.
- Give whenever it doesn’t hinder their standard of living.
- Are not much different from the rest of the world.
- Want the benefits of what Christ did without conforming to who He is.
Revelation 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot, I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” God finds lukewarm Christians so disgusting that He SPITS them out of His mouth. Too many of us are indifferent as Christians, and we shouldn’t be that way. We should be on fire, burning passionately for our God.
There’s a saying I’ve heard so many times growing up, “Christians aren’t perfect, they’re just forgiven.” To be completely honest, while I understand this saying I really don’t like it. Because I feel like so many people use this saying as a crutch. So many Christians feel like they can sin and just say “Oh it’s okay because I’m not perfect. No one is perfect, so of course I’m going to sin.” While this is true, we shouldn’t use this saying to EXCUSE ourselves for sin. Even though we are not perfect, we are still called to strive to be like Jesus. So yeah, that means not going out and partying and doing things we know we shouldn’t be doing. If it doesn’t bring God glory then it’s NOT part of His will for your life; and we must desire to be inside of His will. Going to church one or twice a week means nothing if we still do what we want the rest of the week. God doesn’t call us to surrender an hour or two a week to Him, He calls us to surrender our LIVES. And that means sacrificing everything. He wants it all or absolutely nothing. No inbetweens. He doesn’t want you to give yourself half-heartedly. So are you a lukewarm Christian? And if so, what do you need to do to become HOT and on FIRE for God?
<3 B
