Faithful on Fridays Blog

Rev. 3:14-22

Our final pattern for prayer is the church in Laodicea whose name, interestingly, means self-righteous. Jesus instructed John to record His nature of absolute faithfulness and truth that was from the beginning of creation and throughout history. He’s quite familiar with His people becoming self-righteous; they consistently fell into that enemy trap. Our Lord looked over this church, as He continues even today, and saw that their passion for Him was gone: they’d become lukewarm. He used the lower story of their location in a valley, fed by the hot water of Hieropolis and the cold water of Colossae in the mountains and by the time it reached them it became lukewarm: just like their faith. Jesus uses the imagery of the hot, passionate faith or the very cold and refreshing faith in Him to be apparent in His followers and it was not. 

What was the cause of lukewarm faith? He tells us that their wealth and prosperity as made them self-reliant and self-satisfied, not a good combination for any church. He compared His viewpoint to theirs (vs. 17) so they could see their hypocrisy and make some changes. The devil has made it so easy to slip into this mindset in our churches that it took a strong rebuke to wake them up to truth.

Jesus’ solution was to trade in that attitude of self-righteousness or reliance and buy from Him real, spiritual gold, refined by the fire of the Spirit, seriously seeking Him through repentance. When that happens it’s as if we’re responding to His knock, opening the door of our church, and inviting back the Holy Spirit. It’s a community repentance, a church family acknowledging their sin, and corporately receiving His forgiveness to get back on track. Local churches anywhere around the world who reads this message to Laodicea today can seek Him again, be ready to hear what He says, and follow His direction.

Let’s pray for our churches,

Lord, thank you for exposing any self-righteousness in my church that’s seen in our lack of passion for seeking You in everything we do to share the gospel and take care of our fellowship. We’ve become lukewarm and self-reliant to do things the way we’ve always done them. Forgive us for not passionately seeking You and being satisfied with our condition. Give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying, eyes that are anointed with Your healing salve, and hearts that are honest and repentant. May my church corporately sense the rebuke and spring into action by making some changes that are directed by You. May we acknowledge our own hypocrisy and recognize where the enemy has slipped in. Lord, we need church leaders that seriously seek You and lead our congregations in total dependence on You. We desire that fellowship You promised to come in and eat with us, partner with us, and take Your rightful place on the throne of our church as we admit our sin and receive Your forgiveness.