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I like it hot and steamy. Others prefer it cold and sweet. The choice is yours.

Walk into a specialty coffee shop and you could be temporarily dazed and immobilized as to how to proceed. Choices, choices, choices. There’s a category for hot options: cappuccino, espresso, latte, or straight up. Same goes for the iced and frozen menu. Choices. But there’s one I have never heard anyone order. Not once have I heard someone walk into a coffee shop and order a room-temperature, tepid cup of coffee. 

I’ve found plenty of cups of lukewarm coffee abandoned all over my house. Once they no longer hold the heat that fills me with the desire to hug that mug and down the savory blend within, the cups become almost invisible to me. For a true coffee lover, there is nothing more unappealing than a stale, uninspiring, half-empty cup of joe. 

Jesus, the ruler of God’s creation, feels the same way about churches that have lost their passion for serving God. When a church body loses its enthusiasm for winning the lost and being the hands and feet of Jesus, it loses its effectiveness. 

Jesus was speaking to the church in Laodicea. Water was something highly valued in that city. Without its own natural water source, it depended on the refreshing, cool waters from neighboring Colossae and the healing, medicinal waters from the hot springs in Hierapolis, just a few miles away. Lukewarm water wasn’t nearly as desirable or useful. 

As an individual who makes up today’s church, are you lukewarm? Don’t let Jesus see you as stale, complacent, even indifferent. Be hot or cold in your work for God, bringing healing where there is pain and illness and delivering refreshment to the weary. Both are good. Both are needed. Hot or cold, the choice is yours. Just don’t be tepid. Let God use you. 

(Photo courtesy of office.microsoft.com.)

( For more devotions visit us at www.christiandevotions.us )