Are you fit for the manure pile?

In chapter 4, Mr. Chan gives a profile of what the lukewarm Christian looks like.  Many of the signs and symptoms I was familiar with, but I'll be honest in saying that a few hit a little harder than they should have in some cases.

He begins the chapter by talking about the message of Christ and how that message can either fall into good soil or bad.  He admonishses the reader to not assume the title of "Good soil", and laments that in his belief, most current day Christians are not the good soil, but instead are the thorny soil that chokes the seed of the message out.  The thorns of our soil are anything that distracts us from being 100% sold out to God....be it career, money, family, success, etc. We attempt to take stock of our soil's quality and call it "good enough" and call ourself "godly enough", but in God's economy enough is never enough....we need to joyfully be giving Him more than enough, our ALL. Think of those in NT scripture who tried to follow Christ in the "I will give this up and follow You, Lord, but first I need to..." kind of way.  Christ flat out told them that their "buts" were not of the same caliber of importance as was following Him.  This used to catch me off guard and make me think "Well, who did He think He was?".....Oh, wait, that's right... HE'S THE SON OF GOD. Why shouldnt He be considered as more important and worth following than our fleeting things here on earth. Heart check for sure!

The rest of the chapter is spent pointing out the signs of luke warmness.  I would love to know, those of you who are reading this with me, what sign most stuck out to you or gave you a heart check?

What is keeping us from living out a life of red hot dedication to God?  Why do we insist on being luke warm, with one foot in the world and one foot in eternal striving? The Bible clearly states that we can not be fence sitters and that we will be spit out of God's mouth if we are luke warm and tasteless.  He would rather we be completely hot or completely cold but not meandering somewhere in the middle. It's time to wake up and LIVE FOR SOMETHING!

Until we meet again, In HIS crazy love,

Ash