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PROGRAM D-8359
Are you living in the “hot zone?” As Christians we should be, for the Bible tells us that lukewarm living is actually repulsive to God—makes him want to spit us out of his mouth. I’d like to share with you the things we can do to get out of lukewarm territory and start living in the “hot zone.”
Remember that a lukewarm or mediocre life is anything short of what we could be for Jesus. In the parable of the talents, each person began with different resources; one had five talents, one had two, and one had only one. Living above mediocrity into the “hot zone” for that first man meant he had to do more than the other two, because he had more to start with.
But the guy with just one talent never moved into the “hot zone,” because he chose to live in mediocrity. He wasn’t mediocre because he had only one talent and all the others had more. He was mediocre because he didn’t do anything with the one he had. All he had to do was increase his one to two, but he decided to stay in lukewarmness. Remember the condemnation the master gave him? He called him a wicked, lazy slave.
Now, he hadn’t committed any crimes; he was not a disgrace to his family; he wasn’t living an immoral life. He just sat down, got lazy, did nothing, and lived in mediocrity. As a result, he was judged as sinful and lazy. Don’t you think Jesus was trying to teach us something important with this parable? He hates mediocrity.
You and I are living in mediocrity when we fail to use all that God has given us. To whom much is given, much is required, so the definition of mediocrity is different for each of us depending on what we’ve been given to begin with. It is not a matter of how much we have; it is rather how we use what we have.
What about you? Are you falling short somewhere in your life of all that you could be? Aren’t you getting sick and tired of mediocrity? I think the first step to living in the “hot zone” is to pray that God will make you sick and tired of being lukewarm. If you will start to pray that God will make you very uncomfortable with any area of mediocrity in your life, you’ll see that soon there will be changes. As long as you’re comfortable in mediocrity, you’ll never live in the “hot zone.” Begin today by asking God to make you aware of and sick over those lukewarm areas in your life. That’s a good place to start.