Are You On Fire For Christ? Ways To Be Hot Not Lukewarm

Hello, everyone. My name is Spencer Coffman. Welcome to Social Media Ministries where our goal is to share the living Word of God using social media to as many people as possible. And, we are also dedicated to helping them understand and interpret the Scriptures of the Bible.

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So, today we are going to be talking about something that is very important in your walk with Christ, your biblical life, your Godly life, and it is quite simply being hot.

Now, I wore a red shirt, themed it accordingly today. So, you can all be very proud of that. But, you need to be hot. What does that mean? Well, being hot is – we’re not talking about physical appearances or anything like that – we are talking about actively following Christ. So, Jesus doesn’t want followers who follow on and off. He wants you to be 100 percent on. He wants you to be wholeheartedly committed to Him.

What does that mean and what does it look like? Well, to be committed to him means number one – you need to have Him be your personal Savior. So, that’s what becoming a Christian means.

Christianity is a big faith. A lot of people say they’re Christians, or maybe they think or believe that they are Christians, but they haven’t done the one thing that truly makes them a Christian. And, that is inviting the Lord Jesus Christ into your life and telling Him or asking Him to lead you and be commander over you.

So, you give up the rule of your own life and allow Him to rule your life. Essentially, you are accepting Him as your King, and you are no longer king over your own life. You are a subject of His Kingdom, a higher Kingdom.

And, if you have done that before, it’s really – as you know it’s very simple. Hopefully, you are sharing that with others. If not, feel free, share the video and let them, let them watch this. If you don’t want to do that, this could be your way of sharing. If you haven’t done that before, it’s really very simple.

All you need to do is acknowledge you are not perfect – you are a sinner – and that you know that Jesus is perfect, and He came here to save you. He died for you. He took your punishment so you wouldn’t have to. You accept that and you thank Him and you ask Him to come into your life and rule over your life. He will lead you, and you allow him to lead you. And, that’s part of being hot.

So that’s the first step. You accept Christ as your Lord and your Savior, step number one.

Number two – make the decision to commit to Him, to follow Him wholeheartedly. That means that every day, every minute, every day, you need to follow Him. He wants to be in your life.

Your spiritual life needs to be 24/7. One of my favorite, favorite lyrics of a song is by the great artist Toby Mack, and it says, “24/7, every minute, every day.” That means that you need to be following God 24/7, every minute, every day. All day long He is on your mind. He is in your mind. You are thinking about Him. You are talking to Him, praying, etc.

Now that doesn’t mean that’s it. There’s a lot more to being hot than simply thinking about God, or walking down the street and thanking Him for the great day, or seeing a butterfly go by, and you say, “Wow. Thank you, LORD, for showing me that. That was really beautiful,” or “Thank you for the rain today.”

Yes, that’s part of it. You also need to show it. You need to live it. You need to spend time with the LORD by reading your Bible, doing a devotional, watching sermons, attending church – fellowship – meeting with other Christians. Doing all of that is another great part of being hot.

You need to spend time with Christ. Spend time with others. Talk about Christ. Get in some arguments, some debates.

Now, don’t get in debates and get angry about it. Get in debates and learn more – not in debates with people of other faith – but you do this with other believers, and you talk about certain things like maybe the flood, how…how many animals were on the ark, and different things like at what time period did that happen?

Or, maybe other things like David in the caves and why he didn’t kill Saul when he had the chance or any other different stories in the Bible – Joseph and what happened to him with his brothers and how that would make you feel, pick all these different stories in the Bible, and talk about them with other believers. Engage in fellowship. So, that’s very important.

If you’re a believer and you’re not hot, what does that make you? Well, if you’re hot, you’re fully following Christ.

You are doing all of these things: you’re sharing the Gospel with others, you’re probably attending church, you’re communicating with other people, you’re having discussions, you’re probably reading your Bible every single day, or at least multiple times a week, you maybe are doing a devotion, you’re watching these videos all the time, you could be sharing them with people, you could be sharing Bible verses with people – whether it’s a verse of the day from the Bible app that you post – anything like that. You’re hot.

Okay, the opposite of hot is cold. So, if you’re not hot, you could be cold, but people who are cold are unbelievers. They are the people who haven’t yet found Christ. They have not accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. They’re cold. So, if you’re a believer, you’re a Christian, then you have accepted Christ, and you’re not hot, that means you are lukewarm.

Lukewarm is not a good thing. You do not want to be lukewarm.

If you’ve seen the movie “War Room,” there is a great scene in there where this nice little old lady, she’s a comedy – she’s very enjoyable to watch in the film, and she is having a realtor lady over to her house because she wants to sell her house.

So, the realtor comes over for coffee. And, this little old lady, she pours herself a nice hot cup of coffee, and then she grabs the second cup for the realtor lady and she pours half the cup with hot coffee and half the cup with another pot that she’s got sitting over on the counter that’s obviously cold. And so, the coffee then is most likely lukewarm.

And, they go out, and the little old lady is talking to the realtor lady and asks about her prayer life, etc. And, she says, “Well, she knows God, but she’s not really that active,” and she takes a sip of the coffee eventually, and, “Oh it’s warm.” The old lady says, “No, I like my coffee hot.”

So, I kind of skipped over some stuff. I don’t want to ruin the scene, but if you haven’t seen the movie, watch it, or you could YouTube that scene. It’s a pretty good scene, and it illustrates the point very well.

The LORD wants you to be hot. If you’re not hot, he will spit you out of His mouth. Now, it says that in the Bible.

So, if you have your Bible, I want you to take it, open it up, and we’re going to turn to Revelations 3:16. So, I’ll give you a couple of minutes to find it because this is a cool Verse, it’s an important Verse, and it is the Verse that supports the whole scene in that movie “War Room” and what I’ve been saying.

So it says, Jesus says, “So, because you are…neither hot nor cold, I’m about to spit you out of my mouth. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” He will spit you out. He doesn’t want you. He doesn’t want you to be lukewarm.

He wants you to be hot. You drink lukewarm coffee, you don’t like it. You want your coffee hot or cold. If you’re cold, you are an unbeliever. If you’re lukewarm, you’re a believer not doing anything. Don’t be lukewarm. You want to be hot.

Let’s look back a couple verses. So, in Verse 15, “I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot.” This is Jesus speaking right here, “I wish you were either one or the other!” One or the other. That means He would rather you be cold than be lukewarm. He wishes you were one or the other. Obviously, He wants you to be hot, but one or the other.

Don’t be lukewarm. In ranking, it’s hot, cold, lukewarm. If you’re lukewarm, you’re not doing well. If you’re cold, you’re not doing well either.

So, that leaves one alternative. There is one thing that you need to be, and it is hot. So be hot. What does it mean? It’s simple. If you are not 100 percent living your life for Christ, Jesus will spit you out of His mouth. He won’t accept it. You need to be committed. You can’t be partially committed. You need to be fully committed. You must be all there.

You can’t have a couple screws loose. It can’t be a couple of cards short of a full deck. Now, I don’t mean that mentally; I mean that spiritually. You need to be all there. Mentally is fine. There are a lot of people who are a couple cards short of a full deck, and they function no problem. Heck, we all have a few screws loose, okay?

But, you can still be hot spiritually. After all, do you like eating your food lukewarm? No, no, no, no, you don’t. You want it hot. You may even eat it cold. Some people like cold pizza, but you don’t want your pizza that’s kind of like mediocre room temperature, a little bit warmer than room temperature but not quite hot. It’s not that great. It’s better cold, or it’s better hot.

So, you are created in the image of God. You don’t like cold; you like hot better. You definitely don’t like lukewarm. We are created in God’s image. So, if we don’t like lukewarm, we would prefer it hot. Okay, cold is acceptable. We don’t want it to be lukewarm.

Why is it unreasonable to think that God wants it hot or cold but not lukewarm? It’s not unreasonable because it says it right here – Revelation. We just read the Verse. Follow it.

You like it hot, so be hot – on fire. Dedicate your whole being to God – seek Him, ask Him what you can do for Him. He will already be doing stuff for you. He is doing stuff for you. Heck, He gave you this video. He is allowing you to have the time, the desire, the dedication to watch it, to follow it, hopefully, to listen, and to become hot, not only today but every day.

So, let’s look at another Verse. We are going to go to Matthew 19:24. So, let me get there. You turn with me if you can, otherwise listen because I’m going to read it out – 19:24.

Okay, this is important because this is a Verse, if you know Matthew, this is about how a very wealthy man came to the Lord, and said, “What must I do to be saved?” – came to Jesus, “What must I do to be saved?” He says, “Get rid of everything you have. Sell it all. Give it to the poor. Follow me.”

Okay, now we’re not talking about wealth here. That can be a – that’s a subject for a different video, a different sermon, a different lecture, a different presentation that’s coming on later on. Today, we are talking specifically about commitment, about being hot.

So it says here, “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven. Again, I tell you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’”

Now, we’re not talking about rich people and entering the Kingdom of God. This is not what this is. We, in this instance, are talking about giving up what you have to be saved. It’s all God’s anyway. Where did you get your wealth? The Lord, Jesus Christ – Yahweh gave it to you. You got everything from Him; it’s His. He becomes Lord of your life; it’s His anyway.

God’s not telling him – I mean in this instance, He says, “Sell all you have. Give it to the poor. Come follow me.” In your instance, He’s saying, “Give up control. Let me control it. Do what I tell you to do. Follow me. Commit to me.” Be hot.

If you’re cold, you’re not going to do it. You’re going to rule over your own stuff. If you’re lukewarm, you maybe are, but you’re not fully committed. So, if God said, “Hey, I want you to give a thousand bucks to your church.” You may be like, “No, I don’t want to do that.” It’s His anyway. Be obedient.

And, I’m not saying you need to go out and give away everything you have. That’s not the point. The point is you need to commit. And, that’s what Jesus is telling here because the disciples heard this, and they were discouraged. They said, “Who can be saved?” Jesus said, “You can all be saved. Just follow me.” That’s it. You leave everything behind.

It doesn’t mean that you need to literally go out and walk out of there and become a hobo with a stick and bandana tied up with your three possessions in there and walk around. No, you just need to accept the fact that you are committing to him. You need to be hot.

We’re going to go to another one – Acts Chapter 5. This is a very important Verse. Again, this is something related to wealth, but wealth is not the point in this. Now, of course, in the Scriptures, this could be used to interpret wealth and greed because that’s what this Verse is, but it’s about – it’s Acts Chapter 5. So, you can turn there.

The whole Chapter – we’re not going to go through the whole thing. We’re just going to go through a little bit, and it’s Ananias and Sapphira. So, I’m going to summarize here. What they did was they sold their property, and they wanted to follow God.

So, they went to Peter, and they brought their money. They said, “We sold our property. Here you go. We’re going to give this to the Holy Spirit.” So, they committed. They committed to God! Great! Unfortunately, they were only lukewarm. They kept some. They kept it. They took most of their money; they brought it to Peter and said, “We want to give this to the Holy Spirit,” but they didn’t.

So, “Peter said, ‘Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourselves some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.’”

“When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.” That was it; he died. “Great fear seized all who had heard, and the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.”

“Three hours later” – Peter did the same thing to his wife – “He said… – to Ananias his wife – “He said, ‘Tell me what is the price you and Ananias got from the land?’” “Yep, this is the true price.” He confronted her, “How could you test the Spirit of the LORD?” And then, of course, she falls down and dies as well.

What is the point here? The point of this is they kept something. It’s – there’s several points in this passage, but the one that I want to hit home on is they were committing to God. They sold their land. They decided that they were going to wholeheartedly follow Him, commit everything they had to the LORD.

They were going to be hot: they sold their stuff, they were bringing the money, they’re going to be hot. Unfortunately, they decided we don’t want to be hot. We want to be lukewarm. We’re going to keep some of the money just in case this doesn’t work out. We’re not fully committed. And, they were confronted, they lied, they died.

So, there are several points again: don’t lie, don’t be greedy, because that’s what essentially kept them from doing this was greed, they wanted to be in control of their own self. But, the point is if you’re going to be hot, you need to be fully committed 100 percent to God. It doesn’t mean selling everything you have. I mean it might for you, but it means allowing Him and accepting everything that you have is God’s anyway.

He gave me this. He gave me this suit. He gave me everything. The words to speak are His. Everything is from God.

So, you can choose whether or not you want to allow God to have control over it, and you say, “It’s yours anyway. Whatever you want me to do, I will do.” And, He will allow you to maybe become very wealthy, maybe whatever your walk is or your purpose is, it will be fulfilled. But, you’re not holding back. You’re not holding onto things; you’re allowing it to happen.

I’ve got a few more points that I want to make before we wrap up for today. It is about Abraham and Isaac. So, we have Abraham who has his only son Isaac, and he was told by God, “You need to take Isaac up the mountain. You need to sacrifice. You need to give Isaac to me because I gave him to you.” And Abraham of course doesn’t want to do this, but he is going to obey.

And so, what he does is he takes the wood, takes everything, gets it all ready, gets Isaac, goes up the mountain, and prepares the sacrifice. Long story short, God stops him, says, “No, sacrifice the ram, but because I know you didn’t withhold from me your son, I know you are serious and you are going to follow.” And so, that is very, very important because he was committed to God. He was there. He was hot.

The disciples, same thing, they were hot. They left everything and followed God. They followed Him to their deaths. They were crucified. Andrew when he was crucified, he preached to a passerby while he was dying on the cross. So, that is very important.

James, the brother of John, he was so hot that he was willing to face execution, and the person who accused James was so moved by that willingness that he said, “My life is not my own anyway. I can go to God.” He was so willing to face execution, and the person who accused James was so moved by that, he converted to Christianity on the spot and asked to be executed with James.

Wow – so this person converts to Christianity, the Roman officials beheaded both men simultaneously – done! He was executed with him because James was so on fire for Christ. He was so hot that he moved that person and got executed with him.

In conclusion here today, you need to be hot. Don’t be lukewarm. You need to be hot. Help others become hot. How do you be hot? Follow God. Seek Him every day. Share what you can with others. Read your Bible, read your devotionals, go to church, study, fellowship with others. Do all that you can do to continue following Christ.

I really hope that this message has helped you today. If so, again, please subscribe, share, like, hit the bell icon, follow us on social media, help us complete our mission by sharing the Gospel, sharing the Bible all across the Internet through social media with as many people as possible.

Let’s pray:

Thank you, LORD, for this great day and for this inspiring message. We ask that those listening would be touched, that you would move them to be hot. Help us to be hot.

Help us to follow you wholeheartedly, to commit to you, and to continue moving forward to read, to listen, to follow, to discuss with others, to be hot like James who we can so move people that they convert instantly and be with us.

LORD help us to continue to live for you and to take that step. I ask that you bless each and every person listening and watching today. Help them in their lives and continue to bless the work of Social Media Ministries.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen.

So again, I want to thank you for tuning in today. Please continue to do so and also share this with as many people as you feel comfortable doing.

Thank you.