Lukewarm Ain't Hot Enough For Me Part 8

Grace to you and peace from our Father dear brethren. In the last segment, we looked at the semblance of Ezekiel 47 to the life of a believer. Today I would like to take the lesson on Ezekiel 47 a little deeper. The Bible records that this river originates from under the threshold of the temple towards the East. As I was looking at the different meanings of the word threshold, one in particular caught my attention: the beginning of a new experience! In all truth, when we think about a threshold as depicted here as demarcation or doorway in the temple, it becomes even more evident that thresholds are ushers to new experiences. When we look at this from the context of our discussion yesterday, we realize that this could inductively represent the journey of the new birth, and growth in the things of the Spirit. Today we will break farther the personalities of the different depths of the water flowing from the temple, so that we can engage ourselves reflectively in a bid to remedy where we are in the four personalities. We will use our standard for the last segment for this (control, comfort, trust and obedience).

The first depth depicted is ankle-deep water. When we look at this in relation to our standard, we realize that this kind of believer has a lot of control over how they respond to the Spirit, they are comfortable because they are still interacting with the safety (ground) beneath their feet, they trust their ability and they have a problem with obedience to the call unto the deep. In essence, this believer is very deaf to the voice of the Lord but very comfortable and happy with just "a little" of the Lord to get by. The knee-deep believer has a little less control because they have responded more to the Holy Spirit. They are still comfortable with the safety beneath their feet and their trust is still in their ability while their obedience is slightly more than that of the ankle-deep believer. All in all, this believer is still still deaf to God but they can relate with what He has done. The waist-deep believer is one who has a little less control because they respond to the Spirit of God half the time, they are however still comfortable with the safety of the ground beneath their feet. This believer trusts in God and obeys Him half of the time. It is therefore safe to say that this believer has issues with total submission and they still want to feel they have control over their lives. The sad thing about this kinds of believers is that despite each level appearing to be better than the previous one, they are all different stages of lukewarm.

The kind of walk God isms calling us into is that of Ezekiel 47:5, where we have no control, all safety harnesses are absent, our trust is fully in God and our obedience is totally to God. This is the kind of believer who Paul talks of in 2nd Timothy 2:4. This believer does not have the word lukewarm in their dictionary because that page was torn off completely.

PRAYER: Lord God of Heaven I commit myself to You. Have mercy on me. I have often felt good about myself because of my little interaction with You, even when I was not fully submitted to You. From today I want to swim in the river of the Spirit where control is not mine. Amen.