15 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold (invigorating, refreshing) nor hot (healing, therapeutic); I wish that you were cold or hot. 16 So because you are lukewarm (spiritually useless), and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth [rejecting you with disgust].I was thinking about change. Imagine your life as a running stream. The water in the stream today is not the same water that was there yesterday. It's always new, always fresh - clear, cold, and invigorating. Now compare that with a puddle, a pool, that's been sitting still for months - full of algae, rank, green. Both bodies of water changed. In the running stream, change brings life. Life for the water and for those touched by the water. In the standing pool, change means death. The stream changes for good. The pool, well, not so good.
Change is inevitable. I once read that relationships are always changing. Know why? Because people are always changing. Just like the water, you are always changing. The only control you have comes from choosing to be the pool or the stream. Will the change be good, or bad?
You may have heard the old saying people never change. It's actually true. I can hear the quizzical look on your face. I just said people are always changing and that they never change. It's perfectly true, people never change. They are changed. On my own, under my control, I cannot change. But I can be changed. The water in the stream doesn't change itself. Gravity and pressure make the water flow. Some force outside of the water changes it. Left on its own, the water becomes a pool.
Why am I writing this? Because one of the biggest ways we change is through obedience. Remember the last letter talked about compliance and obedience? Rules can only tell you what you've done wrong. Think about the driver's manual, when it discusses the right of way. The law never gives one vehicle or person the right of way. The motor vehicle laws only tell you who has to give up the right of way. Rules never make anything you do right. They can only make some of the things you do wrong.
That's why compliance fails. Compliance gives power to the rules. Obedience gives power to a person - especially when that person is God. God gave us rules for the sole purpose of showing us that we can't keep them. Not to frustrate us, but to drive us to Him. Jesus says "I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill it." Obedience over compliance. When we obey, there is no need for rules.
One day, you will find someone to marry. You will stand in front of a whole lot of people and repeat words like love, honor, and obey (or submit if you're more modern). I want you to understand that promise. I don't care about chores. I care about you. I care about all of the lives you will touch. And I want you to be cold, refreshing water. Leaving strength and life everywhere you go. This is only the beginning.
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