Hot or Cold?

When I was a little girl, my friends and I used to play a game called “hot” and “cold.” One person would hide an object, and the others would hunt for it. The person who hid the object would give hints to the people searching, saying, “cold” when they were way off base and “hot” when they were getting close. It’s definitely different than the games now being played by children in today’s age of technology!

Sometimes I think it would be nice for God to give us the same kind of appraisal as we go through life—yelling, “hot” when we are walking in proximity to Him and “cold” when we are wandering away from Him!

I think of the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years, so far from the promised land but not turning totally away from God and going back to Egypt. Just kind of stuck in the middle of the lukewarm life. The promised land could have been theirs so much sooner, but they refused to embrace the life of holiness and faithfulness that God desired for them. But God in His goodness used even those wilderness years to teach them.

I believe that a large number of Christians are like those Israelites. Oh, they assent to the foundational beliefs of Christianity. They have received the free gift of salvation with gladness but now have wandered away from the cross, letting the world capture their gaze instead of their Savior. Every now and then they feel a spark of the flame after a church service or a song on the radio, but they don’t come closer to the flame to be warmed to the soul.

I’ve been in that wilderness, too. Times of a chill overtaking my heart, the flame of faith sputtering and drowning in the liquid wax of the world. Escaping hell but not growing toward abundant life. Planted, but not blooming.

Thankfully, our gracious God will not cast wilderness wanderers away, for salvation is based on faith in Christ, not works. But what a tragedy to prefer wandering in the desert over living in the abundance of the promised land! The Holy Spirit will not audibly yell, “hot” or “cold,” but sometimes He will whisper it to our soul.

And sometimes God uses the body of Christ as that gentle whisper. Through different stages of my Christian growth, I remember being around other Christians who were just different somehow. I couldn’t identify what it was at first, but eventually the Holy Spirit began to whisper to me that I was missing the warmth of something they had. And He was inviting me to draw closer to the flame instead of living the lukewarm life. He was whispering, “cold” and asking me to adjust the thermostat of my heart.

I found that changing the temperature of my heart doesn’t just happen once. It is a daily choice that I must still choose today and every day.

I want to choose every day to have it blazing like a woman in menopause!
Where is your heart’s thermostat set? Is God whispering, “hot” or “cold”?