Tepid.

This is a blog post about a facebook status. If you can get past how annoying that is, read on.

I've been thinking a lot, I mean a whole lot, about the passage in Scripture that says that God would rather us be hot or cold toward Him rather than lukewarm. I've heard it a million times, it seems, but it took on flesh for me this past month in the form of a guy Tony used to disciple through YoungLife. He is now a self-proclaimed atheist and it appears he has taken it upon himself to enlighten the world and liberate everyone he knows from the chains of worthless religion. My first, and lingering, reaction was an overwhelming pity. This is a guy who has gone through so, so much. It just makes me want to love on him (remembering that "it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.") He is embittered and angry and cynical. And it's heartbreaking.

Yet what's almost more heartbreaking are those tepid fence-riders that have left comments for Mr. Nietzsche the Second (as I'll refer to him henceforth) on facebook, replying to his God-bashing status updates with varying versions of "I'm sad for you." What's sad is how these people missed the meaning of the Lukewarm Passage. These are people who think they know God because they don't say outright that He's a myth (like Mr. N II), yet they live like they believe exactly that. Explain that to me! [For the record, I had a former YL-er comment "That's so true!" to one of Mr. N II's posts.... Hmm. Good, I guess, that at least she's admitting she's cold too?]

After I posted a little status about the lukewarm thing, I had a friend remind me of this passage: "Better is it for he who curses God with his lips than for he who praises God with his lips yet his heart be far removed from Him." Conviction much?

Much for me. May it never be said of me that I'm tepid toward or about God, for that's worse all together than a God-curser.