I have two friends that are very serious golfers. It’s much more than recreation and way beyond a hobby. It amounts to a part-time job and they never miss “work.” They do not know each other but I had a similar experience with both. Shortly after developing a relationship they each asked, “Do you golf?” Trying to be clever I gave the same answer both times. “I have golfed, but I don’t golf.” With each of them I followed up with an enthusiastic offer to go with them some time. Neither of them responded to my proposal. They didn’t even acknowledge I said it. I think the best either of them could do was to change the subject.
My friends don’t dabble in their avocation and they had no interest in spending that time with pretenders. Similarly, God is not impressed with people that dabble in Christianity. A half-hearted Christian is a wholehearted underachiever. Christianity is not a religious interest, a field of study or an insurance plan. It requires unreserved commitment to serving the God that saved you.
The Bible refers to the church as the bride of Christ. How healthy is the union if the bride lives as though she is not married except for a few hours one day a week? How much legitimate intimacy can be expected to exist in that kind of relationship? It’s in the same context that Revelation 3:15-19 is written.
I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
This is a letter written to tepid Christians. It is written to Christian dabblers that have an attitude of self-sufficiency. It is written to believers that fail to adequately recognize their reliance on God or trust that He has much better gifts in store for them. Gifts that, in His wisdom, He often gives on the other side of reproof and discipline. The committed Christian recognizes that those are God’s tools for those whom He loves! Increased intimacy with God is a matter of commitment—commitment to prayer, commitment to reading His Word, commitment to worshiping Him in church, commitment to meditating on Scripture, commitment to talking to others about the Scripture you’ve been meditating on.
Consider, as well, the often-misunderstood verse that follows in Revelation 3:20. Knowing that the preceding context is a call for His people to stop playing around and to get serious about their commitment to God, it continues:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
The visual that the Bible provides in this passage is not God waiting expectantly for an unbeliever to choose to let Jesus in. It is language that is borrowed from the Song of Songs to describe an intimate relationship between a husband and a wife (a committed relationship that already exists).
I slept, but my heart was awake. A sound! My beloved is knocking. “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.” (SoS. 5:2)
The bride longs to be with her husband and the husband is knocking at the door. Revelation 3, then, is chastising the apathetic, self-reliant bride and reminding her (reminding you!) that your Savior gives much better gifts than you give yourself and He longs for a fuller, uninhibited, intimate relationship with you. That kind of relationship cannot be achieved by dabbling in your faith. It requires ongoing, committed engagement. Don’t dabble superficially behind a closed door of self-sufficiency. Hear His voice. Open the door. Be zealous and repent. Enjoy the benefits of earnest and consistent devotion to your God.