Am I lukewarm? 3 steps to staying hot

AM I HOT?

Have you ever heard the story of Goldilocks?
Well this is my favorite part!

 Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.
“This porridge is too hot!” she exclaimed.
So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.
“This porridge is too cold,” she said.
So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge.
“Ahhh, this porridge is just right,” she said happily, and she ate it all up.

According to Goldilocks, being lukewarm is just right. But what is good for porridge isn’t good for our spiritual lives.

Revelation 3:15-17 says
 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.  You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

C.h. Spurgeon says I do not think the devil cares how many churches you build, if only to have lukewarm preachers and lukewarm people in them!!!

The greatest cause of atheism today is lukewarm Christians. Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and deny him by their lifestyle!!!

I don't know about you but I want to stay hot!!!

But first there is a few things we have to do!

The first thing is we have to examine our self!
 2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

This is my least favorite thing to do. I don't like seeing what is wrong with me! I know there are things that are wrong with me, I just don't want to know what it will take to fix it! It's like when you have to bring your car to the shop, you know that there is something wrong, but you are scared of what it will take to fix it. We love to ask the world to fix us with some duck tape, because it the cheap, painless and ease. But God says to just let it go.

Paul who wrote this to the church in Corinth, telling them to examine them self, for what he was going to do when he got there. We have to examine our self for what God has coming for us.

The second thing is we can't let what is around us to influence us!
 Romans 12:2 out of the message says
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.

The Titanic didn't sink because of the surrounding water, it sunk because of the water that got in and consumed it. We can't allow what's going on in our country, cite, town or home to get in and weigh us down. That's when we begin sinking. The water around Peter is not why he was consumed, it's when he took his eyes off Jesus and realized he was walking on water.

He is calling us to walk on water, what are we going to focus on!


The last thing is we have to stay by the heater John 15:5-6 NIV
 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”

If we want to stay hot we have to stay by the heater! If we want to bear much fruit we have to stay connected to the vine!

What happens when a pot of water starts boiling, it starts steam. Where does that go? It goes in the atmosphere. When we get hot we are going to change the atmosphere!

Now I challenge you to Examine yourself. Test and see that Christ is in you!
Don't let what is around you influence you. Remember we are in the world, not of it
Make sure you stay by the heater! And you will change the atmosphere.
And YOU WILL STAY HOT!