To Laodicea
Day 700, Sunday, July 12
Revelation 3:14-22
The last of the churches to be addressed in this section is the church at Laodicea. This short letter has two powerful verses that are often quoted, but often don’t appear in the same sermon because they are very different.
If you’ve been around church for long you’ve probably seen a print of an old painting of Jesus knocking on a door. It is based on verse 20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
The popularity of the verse is easy to understand. It presents the call of Jesus as a gentle beckoning, and the response as entry into a feast. While both of those are true, if the verse is taken in isolation it presents an unrealistic image of Christianity, avoiding any hint of sacrifice or surrender. The verse that comes before it offers some welcome context: “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.”
Even the demands Jesus makes are born in love.
The other popular verse from this passage is harsher in tone: “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
This is often used as a verse of judgment on a church that is overly comfortable; it recognizes God in a limited fashion, but doesn’t follow enthusiastically or sacrificially. The following verse is less frequently used, but reinforces that same judgment: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
Failure to recognize how far we are from God can keep us from seeking him.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Sunday meditation

Ecclesiastes 7:26 – 8:1
I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.
“Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered: “Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—while I was still searching but not finding—I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.”
Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance.

Prayer focus
Protect us from comlacency, Lord, and reignite the fire of your Spirit in our soul.