“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Romans 12:2

It is all my wife’s fault! (Dusty Linsley should take some of the blame too).

Today I started a workout program called “Transform 20.” I am sick of being fat and lazy and so after my wife’s prodding, I have reluctantly agreed to try this 20 minute per day routine to get in shape. Just 20 minutes, that is it. I told my wife, “It better be only 20 minutes because that is all you are getting from me.” So far, so good.

This got my thinking going: What about spiritual transformation? Is there anything out there that could help a person dive into the Bible for 20 minutes where they will notice a definate change in the way they think about the world? Sure there are all kinds of Bible studies out there, just as there are millions of workout programs, but for some reason a new twist can make all the difference in the world.

So I have decided to put together a Monday study that I am calling “Transform Twenty” for spiritual training. My method is going to take a very basic approach. Every Monday I am going to walk the reader through a single verse that has played a massive part in forming my personal spiritual convictions. The last couple of years I have begun to realize that truths that I thought were obvious are not obvious to everyone. And then I realized, I also had to learn the obvious truths first from someone.

So if you want to join me on Mondays for only twenty minutes of “conviction transformation”, then grab a Bible, pen, and notebook and let me lead you down the path I took that has changed me forever.

Today’s verse: “So, because you are lukewarm – niether hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16)

This was the first verse my heart was truly awakened to. I was a spiritually blind and dull 20 year old when God started prodding me to think. When it came to my relationship with God at the time, I imagined myself to be one of his besties; but in reality, I was as far away from him as the east is from the west (I borrowed that phrase from the Bible).

So if someone asked me how I stood with God I said, “Just fine! I’m doing great!” I was religious, which meant I went to church regularly. I was a nice guy, comparatively speaking. (Isn’t that how you determine if you are good, compare yourself against others like Hitler, Stalin, Trump and the large boatload of Christian hypocrites floating on the evangelical seas?) And I was not a wild man, there was not an evil bone in my body. And to top it off, I loved my family! That is always a plus. So I was more than convinced that I had what it takes to be on good terms with God.

If heaven and eternal life was based on moral “comparative economies of scale”, then I was a shoe-in for the afterlife. And then I read this verse, and it was like being struck by an arrow in the heart…

IF YOU ARE LUKEWARM, YOU MAKE GOD SICK!

Wait a second, how could I be making God sick? I was a good guy? But this verse said differently, and it was this verse that God used to wake me up to that terrifying reality. Lukewarm describes the person who was nice, never making waves, everyone’s friend, and lukewarm was me! And as this verse says, there is a major problem attached to niceness, as James 4:4 says,

“You adulterous people, don’t you know friendship with the world is hatred toward God?”

I didn’t know how perilous of a position I was in, I really didn’t. I thought friendship with everyone, and having tolerance for everything everyone did, was a sign of love? Tolerance in our modern parlance means to be a “nice guy.” But Revelation 3:16 points out that niceness maybe seperating you from God.

How could that be? Why is tolerance and niceness not enough? The reason is simple: Because God is holy! As Habbakkuk 3:13 says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”

Revelation 3:16 is a small verse, but like a tiny sliver stuck in my toe too long, I couldn’t ignore it anylonger. Being woken up to the horror we face living in a world run by a terrifying God is where a faith journey begins. And for me I realized that being nice was not enough to be at peace with God.

Ask yourself these questions:

(1) Do you find yourself accepting everyone and everything because you want to be loving?

(2) What are some of the things in your life that lead you to believe you are ok with God? (ie: are you religious, friends with everyone, on good terms with your family?)

(3) Who do you compare yourself to which leads you to believe you are higher up the notch to heaven than they are?

(4) What does it mean to “be spit out”?

(5) Do you believe that this verse accurately depicts the attitude of God toward a lukewarm heart? (Faith takes God at his word).

Your 20 minutes are up!