Focus: Positive Extremist

Text: Rev.3:15-16

"I know thy works, that thou art NEITHER COLD nor HOT: I would thou wert COLD or HOT. So then because thou art LUKEWARM, and neither COLD nor HOT, I will SPUE thee out of my mouth."

Lukewarm Christianity is intolerable. God dislikes moderate faith. Nothing about God is moderate. God endorses positive extremism. Let your faith be on fire or let it be soothingly chilly. God can't stomach spiritual indifference. Our God is an all out God, not a halfway God.

The incarnation of Christ is God going all the way for love. The cross is God going all the way for love.

He is all the way God. From the height of riches He came down to depth of poverty. From the highest heaven He went to the lowest hell. No in-between or halfway measures.

He is the God of extreme abundance. He made man, and breathed into his nostrils the BREATH of LIVES - not breath of LIFE. It's plural in Hebrew, and it speaks of superabundance. Our Lord Jesus Christ says, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more ABUNDANTLY" (Jh.10:10). Our Lord Jesus gives life in excess. He blesses us with all spiritual blessings.

From the grave Christ arose and ascended FAR ABOVE ALL HEAVENS. The Father lives in the heaven of heavens. Everything about God is positively extreme.

Elijah says to all Israel, "How long HALT ye BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word" (1Kgs.18:21).

God wants all-the-way commitment, all-the-way love, and all-the-way devotion to Him. It's either God or Baal, not God and Baal together. We must avoid the sin of syncretism.

Let me reemphasize that there's nothing moderate about God. He is the God of ALL grace, God of ALL comfort, and Father of spirits. Paul tells us of "all the fullness of God."

There's nothing ordinary about God. He is both extraordinary and extravagant. He is the prodigal Father, who goes all out in loving, blessing, forgiving, healing, saving, and restoring.

God is not a "play-it-safe, middle-of-the-road mediocre." He is into something or not at all.

If you are practicing a play-it-safe kind of spirituality, or a convenient faith, then be sure that God is very ready to vomit you out of his mouth. He will not tolerate a lackadaisical attitude to divine things. Christ says, "I am about to vomit you out of my mouth." One paraphrase says, "You make me sick, pew-potato church." A church at ease, a motionless church, a moderate or settled church is nauseating to Christ.

The beauty of the church Christ is building is not in its flashiness, but in its healthiness; not in its fancifulness, but in its liveliness.

The Lord Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit, and with fire. When the Spirit comes upon us, He sets us on fire. We catch His flames. The Spirit never comes into our lives to play a moderate or ordinary role. He comes to both reside in us and preside over us - nothing less.

In answering our prayers God goes to the extreme. Paul says, "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think…" (Eph.3:20). He answers our prayers and does things in our lives that are beyond our wildest imaginations.

God wants you to be a positive extremist for Him. Paul was a positive extremist. He says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Eph.6:14). And again, he says, "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1Cor.2:2). That's extreme passion for and devotion to Christ. Let's go all out for God and stop playing it safe. Be God's positive extremist.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter