99.5% of Christians are Luke-Warm, or CINO's

There have only been 5 types of humans in this world:

• Jesus Christ, both fully God, and fully man;
• True Christians who are Hot for Jesus Christ
• Luke-warm Christians & CINO's (Christians In Name Only)
• Non-Christians who are cold & distant from the One True God
• Semi-humans with defiled DNA (eg. Nephilim: offspring of humans inter-bred with Fallen Angels, cyborgs, genetic experiments, etc.)

Based on numerous surveys of those self-declaring as a Christian, only ~0.5% of these currently meet God's definition of a True Christian:

A human who fears God; knows God; fully loves God; contritely & humbly confessed all their sins to God, and asked for forgiveness; forgiven all others, and retain no bitterness; seeks a deep, intimate lovingly obedient relationship with Jesus Christ as their God, LORD, Messiah, Saviour, King, and friend; is full immersion baptized in the name of the Trinity; is Born Again; has received the fiery baptism of the Holy Spirit; hates all sins, just as God hates all sin; loves all things that God loves; picks up their cross daily and follows Jesus, as a disciple of Christ for the greater glory of God.

Not everybody is a True Christian.  Most are luke-warm.

 [Rev 3:14-17 KJV] "14 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:".

In most cases, but not all, the luke-warm Christian:

• lives a secret life with their favorite sins; &/or

• hypocritically virtue signaling their fake righteousness to most other people; &/or 

• falsely call many actions & things they enjoy as "good", or necessary, or God's rules don't apply to them, as they are "special", claiming they have done so much for God, that God will turn a blind eye towards their "insignificant" sin; in spite of God clearly defining these as sins that He despises.

The luke-warm Christian is all for show.  They usually seek maximum comfort in this life, rather than maximum righteousness.  Therefore there is minimal to zero driving force for them to change for the better.

The luke-warm Christian usually seeks human affirmations (ie.  loving the affirmations of the "in" crowd), rather than pleasing God.  This is usually driven by vanity.

Vanity = Luke-Warm

Vanity is defined as excessive pride, admiration, or preoccupation with one's own appearance, achievements, or abilities, often driven by a need for approval from others. It implies conceit and, in a literary sense, refers to futility or emptiness. Synonyms include conceit, narcissism, egotism, self-love, and arrogance.

The Problem with Seeking Human Affirmation:

• It is Fickle: The "in crowd" changes their minds quickly. What brings praise today might bring criticism tomorrow.

• It is Never Enough: Human affirmation is addictive and temporary; you are always looking for the next "fix" of approval.

• It Often Requires Compromise: To keep the approval of the crowd, you often have to compromise your own values, your identity, your relationship with Jesus Christ, and ultimately, your salvation.

The Teaching

In Revelation 3:14-17, Jesus prefers "cold" over "lukewarm" because lukewarm represents a useless, self-satisfied, and complacent spiritual state that disgusts Him, while cold—representing a clear lack of faith—is at least honest and potentially open to change.  Lukewarm believers are ineffective and deceptive, claiming to follow God while being indifferent, whereas cold people are clearly detached.

The Metaphor of Utility: 

The city of Laodicea had no local water source, so water was brought in by Roman aquaduct. As the water travelled in the aqueduct, the cold refreshing mountain spring water grew more & more warm, contaminated, and foul; causing nausea.  Other cities had hot water springs for hot baths & healing (like the city Hierapolis), or cold refreshing water (like Colossae).

The Danger of Complacency: 

The Laodiceans were wealthy and deemed themselves self-sufficient, leading to a "lukewarm" faith that was neither passionate (hot) nor clearly non-existent (cold).

"Cold" is Honest: 

A cold person realizes their need for spiritual life, whereas a lukewarm person is blinded by their own self-righteousness and apathy.

The Result of Lukewarmness: 

Jesus states He will "spew" (vomit) the lukewarm out of His mouth, indicating a complete lack of usefulness and spiritual stagnation.

In essence, a lukewarm state is a hypocritical, middle-ground existence that hinders genuine spiritual growth and witness, making it worse than outright coldness.

God's 26 Commandments for Christians is a summary of 300+ Bible verses, especially written for Luke-warm Christian's, and new Christian's.  It helps them get started at better understanding God and His expectations.

https://et-manitoulin.blogspot.com/2019/12/gods-26-commandments-for-christians.html

If you are faithfully doing all of these 26 Commandments, you are not likely a Luke-warm Christian, and likely Rapture-Ready as a disciple of Christ, and an Overcomer.  Congratulations!  We encourage to expand your gaze to doing the same for the entire Bible.

References:

https://www.bibleref.com/Revelation/3/Revelation-3-16.html

Are you a luke-warm Christian?

https://escapetoreality.org/2015/07/24/are-you-lukewarm/

https://www.thewarcry.org/articles/spiritual-stumbling-blocks-lukewarmness/

https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/44--hot--cold--or-lukewarm--revelation-3:15-16-

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LxVFBBnCgAE&

https://www.quora.com/Why-does-it-seem-in-Gods-opinion-worse-to-be-lukewarm-than-hot-or-cold-Rev-3-16

https://www.facebook.com/KennethLockII/posts/revelation-316-niv-so-because-you-are-lukewarmneither-hot-nor-coldi-am-about-to-/1252648806040108/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DQF9DexKd2Bg%26t%3D61

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DzCgjMd9VnQk%26t%3D116

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LxVFBBnCgAE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DfB-kuSJxW4o

Action Vs. Deception

Mel Robbins is a million dollar pop culture life coach, author, public speaker, lawyer, etc..  Over 1.33 million people subscribe to her YouTube channel, while 173,000 people follow her Twitter feed.  

Mel Robbins

In a short YouTube video, she kindly offers everybody some free advice that she feels very deeply about.

Can somebody that popular be wrong?  Does God agree with Mel's advice?  Should you implement Mel's free advice?

Here is Mel's video:

https://youtube.com/shorts/nzAIxJDjXCY?feature=share

Most of us are far from perfect.  Mel suggests we high-5 ourselves in the mirror every morning.  Mel says that "science" backs her up on this recommendation, but fails to provide a link. 

Will this celebrate our mediocrity, locking us in to our current misery we pretend is OK?

My Advice

Instead of Mel's idea, I suggest we should all identify our greatest fault or weakness and maximize our motivation to change for the better.  Big, impossible problems are solved by doing a a little improvement each day.

For example, do you have any ideas you could implement today that would save 5 minutes of effort tomorrow, or avoid a catastrophy?  

Assuming you work 8 hrs/day, a 5 min. savings is an improvement of  5/(8×60)×100%= 1.04%.  

Doesn't seem like much, but repeat that once per week for the next year (52 repeats), you get 1.04^52= 769% improvements (ie. you're 7.69 times better)

What would your boss, or your family, neighbours, or friends say to you if you improved 769% in just one year?

I suggest you'd truly have something worth high 5-ing yourself in the mirror;  far better than Mel's suggestion of deceiving yourself to celebrate fossilized mediocrity, taking away your drive to improve.

In addition, God will help you, strengthen you; if you make your changes towards greater righteousness.  Here's what you need to know:   

https://et-manitoulin.blogspot.com/2019/12/gods-26-commandments-for-christians.html

Mel's advice is similar to most other "feel good" life coaches, psychologists, & psychiatrists.

Everybody gets a gold star.  Everybody is celebrated just for participating.  Nobody keeps score, for we don't want to crush the ego of no child.  

Most wrongly try to foster pride & self-esteem, regardless  if there is anything worthy of pride.  The worse kind of pride is false pride.  This is a pandemic today, also called or accompanied by vanity, selfishness, amour propre, conceitedness, egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, self-absorbed, cocky, self righteous, or self-love.

Lucifer was the greatest creation of God among the angels.  Lucifer became prideful, then that pride lead him to covet the worship that God receives.  Lucifer's pride led him to believe he was equally worthy of worship, which was self deception, delusions of grandeur.  Pride before the fall.

God's Advice

What does God say?:

[Psa 119:36 KJV] "Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness."

[Rom 12:3 KJV] "For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."

[Phl 2:3-5 KJV] "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:"

 

Discussions

Awhile ago, I cautioned against self-love, and selfishness.  Some people were upset with me about this.  This is the Bible verse I was referring to:

[2Ti 3:1-2 KJV] "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,"

Excessive self-love is related to self-esteem.  

For example, bullies have been found to have unrealistically high levels of self-esteem.  

Self-esteem became a newly invented industry, California school system started trying to teach children to raise their self-esteem, but this was a get rich quick scheme for the consultants, trainers, and so-called experts; deceiving millions of people.

Does self-esteem exist?  No! says Dr. Jordan Peterson

https://youtu.be/ZjGT074oQow

For the same reason, excessive self-love leads to selfishness, inappropriate levels of self-esteem, narcissism, and others dysfunctions.

It can torment a person as they are forced to live a lie, forced to artificially pump up their self-esteem levels forever each day, or readily agree to bad advice to high-5 themselves every morning in the mirror.  

Having a self-esteem addiction is like having a slow leak in your car's tire, that you have to refill with air every day.  

Self-esteem addicts can be people who chronically pretend with others, and are often found out to by hypocrites who are never honest, always pretend, are plastic people, with trust issues.

Instead of constantly feed our self-esteem beast, how does God want us to be?

God wants us to be meek, contrite, self-effacing, serve others rather than serving ourselves, take the lowly seats rather than assume we're always seated at the head table.

God is the One and only One that is good, and great.  All glory and worship goes to God, not us.  

Worship God, not yourself.

Satan's Choice: The Weakest Links

Satan is smart.  He usually attacks at the weakest link in the chain.  You need to know your weakest link, and get it reinforced now.  Let's look at Satan's strengths, human weaknesses, and where Satan  is likely to attack.  Here are the first 2 of the top 4 weak links.  The next 2 will be the next posting

Pride 

The Bible tells us in Ezekiel 28:12-18, Isaiah 14:12-15, Job 41:34, Proverbs 16:18 to be wary of pride.  Pride was the start of Satan's downfall.

After doing great things, we are tired, and take a rest.  If we lose our focus, rest turns into sloth.  All those around us, including ourselves, know what sloth and laziness looks like.  To protect ourselves from criticism and consequences, we start resting on our laurels of past achievements instead of today's work.
 
In John 8:7, when questioned about judgement against an adulterous woman, Jesus said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

In a similar way, how can I successfully attack someone who has already achieved more than myself, even though they now rest on their laurels?
 
Instead of pride and laurel resting, we need to learn from the Canadian goose.  Geese fly in a V-shaped formation because it reduces the aerodynamic drag, making flight easier for all members of the flock.  The strongest goose leads their flock, as the spear point of the V-formation faces the greatest wind resistance.  Everyone within the body of the V-formation honks encouragement to the lead goose throughout their flight.  Once the current leader becomes tired, and can no longer lead the flock at the maximum speed, the next strongest goose naturally pushes forward at a faster pace.  Everybody else naturally falls in behind the new leader, again taking advantage of the slip stream created in the newly configured V-formation.  This ensures the flock always travels at the most efficient speed, with no pride nor laurel resting.
 
How will you help arrange your family, your neighbourhood, your work, your community, and your country so as to avoid Satan's pride and laurel resting?

Sex and Lust

Satan has been busy making our human society more and more hypersexual.  Lust is defined as a very strong sexual desire.  Almost all sexual taboos and limitations on acceptable behaviour have been removed by:

• relaxation and changes in the law;
• through the discretionary enforcement of the law;
• Books, movies, music, advertising, and other media;
• Distractions
• Poor examples by societal heroes and leaders
• the breakdown of the family unit

If Satan attacks a member of a church congregation or club, that wayward member is easily chastised, removed, or shunned.  However, if Satan attacks the leader of the church or club, the entire organization is destroyed.  If the leader cannot be corrupted, perhaps Satan will attack via the spouse, or the children, or the friends of the leader.

Have all leaders adequately warned those who support or surround the leader to be aware of Satan and his evil plans?