I love coffee. I mean, I really love coffee! There’s nothing quite like the first cup of coffee in the morning. Agree? It’s okay if you don’t. There are some beverages that are best consumed either hot or cold. Coffee is one of them. Have you ever gone to a Starbucks and asked them for a cup of lukewarm coffee? Of course not. That would be kind of silly. You order your coffee hot or iced! When I am done mowing the lawn or doing yardwork, I don’t go back inside and pour myself a nice tall glass of lukewarm water. I don’t pour a glass of iced tea or lemonade and then let it sit on the kitchen counter until it reaches room temperature. When it’s cold outside, I don’t make a lukewarm cup of hot chocolate. No, I want it piping hot, then add those little marshmallows, stir them around, and wait until they start to melt a little bit.

You understand what I am getting at? There are things in life that are great either hot or cold, but never lukewarm. There’s nothing worse than getting a caramel macchiato, forget about it as it sits in your cup colder, and then picking it up and taking a sip only to find it is no longer hot but the same temperature as your car. I’ve thrown away many five-dollar cups of coffee for that very reason.

The same concept is true about many things in life. Just about everything we do in life requires us to be either all-in or completely out. Take a relationship for example. When I think about my own marriage, I wonder if my wife would appreciate me and love me more if I was only half-committed. How well would our relationship thrive if I only gave her around fifty percent? It probably wouldn’t last long, would it? Marriages, and any relationship for that matter, isn’t fifty-fifty. Each party in the relationship must give one hundred percent, or one party is going to feel cheated at some point. That’s no selfishness but rather a fact when it comes to fostering and nurturing a personal relationship with anyone. I have abandoned friendships because after a considerable amount of time, I ended up feeling like I was the only one contributing to it. Nobody, in a relationship, wants to feel like the burden of whether it grows or dies falls on them.

The same concept can be applied, no…it should be, when it comes to our relationship with God. Why should we go through our everyday relationships with others, thinking we must invest time and effort into making sure that relationship grows, yet neglect our own Creator? God values that time with us. He doesn’t want us to walk through life and spend a moment of it lukewarm towards Him. We are either on-fire and hot for serving Him and others, to share what He has done in our lives, or we are cold. We must choose. It’s either hot or cold.

Much like most of us, God hates lukewarm.

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”

Revelation 3:15-16, New King James Version