When given a choice, the vast majority of people will take lukewarm over hot or cold every time. On cold winter days we turn the heat up so we are as “warm as toast” – lukewarm, not hot. On hot summer days we turn the air conditioner on and bring the room temperature to moderate or lukewarm – no longer hot but also not too cold. Lukewarm!

Why do we do this? Because people don’t like extremes. And why do we like things lukewarm? Because it’s comfortable. But settling for comfortable will paralyze your spiritual life every time. This is why so many believers are so anemic spiritually. They don’t take the Bible seriously, not because of any great theological conviction but simply because it makes them uncomfortable.

Working with the poor or connecting with people who are “different” takes us outside our comfort zones. Sharing our faith, tithing, giving, serving, caring, stretching, connecting, and praying are all essential for a living faith but often don’t happen, usually because they are risky, inconvenient, or difficult. We would rather put our faith in neutral, give in the compromise, and settle for a lifeless, boring faith than experience the kind of discomfort that creates growth.

The amazing thing is this: almost no one starts out this way. Few brand-new Christians are lukewarm. Most new believers have a vibrant faith. Worship is new and fresh. The Bible is becoming an open book. Stunned by God’s amazing grace, they can’t wait to help their friends experience the same. Then something happens. Their romance with God turned to routine. Delight turns to disillusionment. Enjoying God is replaced by enduring life. And another church-attending, cross-wearing, lukewarm Christian is produced.

What happened?

They have fallen prey to a number of things that destroy their passion and thus their spiritual growth and health. And, we will discuss those in this new series of daily blogs.

Jesus, Matthew 22:37

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Lukewarm is not good enough … Following Jesus means being passionately in love with Him.

It seems that today Christians want to attend church but not necessarily follow Jesus. They want to be “good” but not too good. They want to be “right” in what they believe but not to the point of fanaticism where it changes the way they think and the way they live. Growing up we would have called this “having your cake and eating it too.” Not possible. You cannot be lukewarm and follow Jesus. He told us that…

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit (vomit) you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15-16)

Chad Walsh wrote:

“Millions of Christians live a sentimental haze of vague piety, with soft organ music trembling in the lovely light from stained-glass windows. Their religion is a thing of pleasant emotional quivers, divorced from the will, divorced from the intellect, and demanding little except lip service to a few harmless platitudes. I suspect that Satan has called off the attempt to convert people to agnosticism. If a man travels far enough away from Christianity he is always in danger of seeing it in perspective and deciding that it is true. It is much safer, from Satan’s point of view, to vaccinate a man with a mild case of Christianity, so as to protect him from the real thing.”

Christians seem to want to attend church but not necessarily follow Jesus. Let’s continue tomorrow and look at why this is true.

Playing it safe and not stepping out in faith has a fourth consequence for the believer and disciple of Jesus who is trying to remain secure and comfortable. Playing it safe shrivels our hearts.

If you are a Christ-follower and are listening for His voice every day, Jesus is going to challenge your faith by asking you to do what seems impossible…

I want you to go on a mission trip.                                                                                 I want you to start tithing.                                                                                                I want you to go talk to that person about Me.                                                              I want you to ask forgiveness from that person.                                                         I want you to lead a small group Bible study.                                                              I want you to work with junior high students

Our faith gets tested and stretched only when we respond to Jesus asking us to do something that in our human logic is impossible. Taking steps of faith is the alternative to the boredom and stagnation that causes most people to wither up and die. Author Gregg Levoy called it the “common cold of the soul.”

To sinful patterns of behaviour that never get confronted and changed,      Abilities and gifts that never get cultivated and deployed – – –                         Until weeks become months,                                                                                    And months turn into years,                                                                                         And one day you’re looking back on a life of                                                      Deep, intimate, gut-wrenchingly honest conversations you never had;            Great bold prayers you never prayed,                                                          Exhilarating risks you never took,                                                                   Sacrificial gifts you never offered,                                                                           Lives you never touched,                                                                                             And you’re sitting in a recliner with a shrivelled soul,                                           And forgotten dreams, and you realize there                                                               was a world of desperate need,                                                                                   And a great God calling you to be part of                                                    something bigger than yourself – – – –                                                                       You see the person you could have become but did not;                                     You never followed your calling.                                                                                  You never got out of the boat.

It is time, Christian, to stop looking for safety, security, and comfort. It is time to take a risk of faith and step out into the calling on your life as a follower and disciple of Jesus.

Last time we saw that being safe and secure limits our impact on others for Jesus. The second thing playing it safe does is shrink our faith…

Try to turn to a passage, any passage, in your Bible, where God calls someone to something safe. Abraham leaves the familiar. Moses goes to the familiar – Pharaoh – where he could face certain death. Esther puts her life in danger to persuade the king. David takes on a giant. Joshua crosses a river. Peter gets out of the boat in the midst of a storm. Jesus goes to the cross.

Every call of God, when embraced, is risky. However, authentic faith is developed only when we respond to the call of God and take a risk. That’s because when we take a risk, we learn that God can come through. We learn that God can do what we can’t do on our own.

I can’t find a single verse in the Bible where Jesus says, “Come, follow Me. Play it safe.”

A preacher was speaking at a conference where he called Christians to stop living safe, comfortable lives with no real failures, risks, or struggles.

He had a balance beam put onstage. While standing on the beam, he described the desire for security and stability in all of us. To illustrate the danger of that choice, he said, “Imagine you’re at the Olympics…. Then, instead of doing a risk-filled routine, he just lay down on the beam, wrapped his arms and legs around it, and hugged it. He explained how people respond to instability by refusing to venture out. They say, “I’m just going to have my nice little family. I’m going to homeschool my kids. I’m not going to let them outside because the sun has bad rays.”

He went on, “I don’t want to do anything crazy for God. I just want to go to church on Sundays and maybe give like 2 percent, and maybe help in the nursery”… You do this your whole life then you say, “God, You know what? I would love to die in my sleep and not even feel it and then just go up to heaven.”

Then he crawled off the balance beam and threw his arms in the air as if he’d just dismounted from a spectacular Olympic performance.

He then asked, “Could you imagine watching the Olympics and watching someone do that, then expect a great score? What is the judge suppose to say?”

Lousy balance beam routine, but great point. No points.

Fighting to be safe, secure, and comfortable shrinks our faith.

While in Russia recently I was honoured to be at the graveside service of a young man I had met on a previous visit. He was 32 years old, recently married, and expecting his first child. He was well liked by everyone, always smiling, and served in his local church with a good heart. He was always there for you if you needed someone or something. He was greatly admired and liked.

He died suddenly and many were in confusion as to why God let this happen. There was even talk about raising him from the dead.

As I stood at the graveside watching the men shovel in the dirt over the coffin it was a time to reflect that there are often no easy answers. When my own father died when I was in my mid-twenties and he was only 56, I remember asking God the hard question – why? There was no answer then. There is no answer now.

Let’s face it, sometimes there are no simply answers in life. No pat religious answers. It does no good to try to live life believing that your faith will give you all the answers to events and situations in life. Not true. Does not happen. We are called to follow Jesus regardless, because…

Without Jesus’ love, we become critical and even cynical                             Without Jesus’ sacrifice, we become selfish                                                      Without Jesus’ grace, we become legalists.                                                     Without Jesus’ direction, we become driven by opinion                                 Without Jesus’ values, we care about all the wrong things                          Without Jesus’ wisdom, we become unbalanced                                          Without Jesus’ passion, we become boring.                                                   Without Jesus’ joy, we become lifeless

So, in the midst of situations and circumstances where I simply don’t understand or don’t have answers, I know only one thing to do – follow Jesus regardless. There are simply no easy answers or religious pat answers.

Last comment: I tire of Christians who feel the need to have an answer for every person who asks … life and the Christian faith are not like that. You can’t simply pass off one of your pat religious answers that are not biblical and never help anyone as godly wisdom believing that it is true and helpful. Time to grow up and realize that the Christian faith does not have all the answers and never claimed to. Life happens. But, in the midst of life, we have Jesus!

Many questions will go unanswered and that should be okay. In fact, it is okay!