Coasting

… because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.

(Revelations 3:16, NKJV)

The word ‘chillax’ is a good example of how language evolves.  It is not a commonly used words by the older people and one will normally hear of it among the younger ones.  Chillax emphasizes the state of relaxation and being chill, taking things easy and somewhat just letting the chips fall where they will.  It suggests a height of calmness, quiet and freedom from care.   Picture with me a beautiful sunny day when one takes a quiet swim in warm water, just floating around and allowing the water to hold them up taking them wherever the waves move to. That is a true relaxing scenario, one where an individual could even imagine drowsing off, except for the fear of drowning when asleep.  It is a calming space for rest for the body and hopefully mindful reflection. No physical effort is required, no resistance or movement required, it is just being still.  These are moments rarely enjoyed, for life requires that we do not just sit still but that we do something that gives us a sense of satisfaction and achievement.  It is often not in the chillax moments that we make progress but our impact is found in moments when we do something at times, even mundane activities.  We were not created to just rest without purpose, but to be busy to subdue the earth with the brilliance of life that we are so blessed to have.

Our reference verse is normally used during evangelism, asking people to take a stand for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  God has no room for people without a standing, one moment hot in faith and another moment all cold and disinterested.  There is a need to take a stand, lest we lose our lives when we allow ourselves to be swayed back and forth.  We cannot live our life of faith coasting and freewheeling to the whims of the day and mood around us, our position needs to be clear first to ourselves and then to others.  The message of this verse is sprinkled in different parts of scripture.  We read of a fig tree that Jesus cursed when He passed by it and did not find fruit (Mark 11:12-25). The reason why Jesus cursed the tree was because no fruit was found on it.    A parable is also given of a fig tree which bore no fruit despite the fact that it was well tended by the gardener, after three years of waiting for fruit, the owner in his disappointment ordered the cutting down of the tree (Luke 13:6-9).  Brethren, God is interested in the fruit that we bear, we cannot live a life without caring for the fruit that we produce.  In the above instances, lack of fruit led to a curse and a cutting down, both which relate to the verse above, a situation of being spit out from the presence of the Lord.

Elsewhere in the bible we read of the parable of the talents, where the master gave talents to his 3 servants based on their abilities: one got 5; another 2 and another 1 talent.  Upon return, two of the servants had made an increase to their talents while one had buried it as was.  In the end, the master took the 1 talent which had not reproduced and gave it to the servant who had multiplied his 5.  The passage of the bible ends by reminding us that he who utilizes his talents will receive more while he who does not utilize what he has will lose even what he had (Matthew 25:14-30).  As I reflected on this parable, I pictured the talents that God has given us as muscles to do work for Him.  The muscles in the human body when not utilized lose their strength and ability to work leading to a condition of muscle atrophy.  Beloved, that is the same thing that happens to our gifts and talents, we lose their power when we leave them idle and we risk being cut-off as it happened with the parables above.  We cannot be indecisive about our faith, neither can we allow ourselves to be unfruitful for our Father expects us to produce fruit that will last.

Thoughts:

Which fruits have you produced?

Where do you have idle talents?

How are you keeping yourself accountable for fruit bearing?