Chapter 5: Serving Leftovers to a Holy God

Another tough chapter! 

This chapter further continued the challenge made in chapter 4 about being a lukewarm Christian – Right up front the author reminds us that “churchgoers who are “lukewarm” are not Christians.” Most of our discussion during the study was around the fact that God asks us to give up everything to follow him and what does that mean.

Our group thought it might not be so literal – in that all of us are not asked to sell our belongings (material things) and float through the world without any ties to them.  While for some this may be the calling, we discussed the fact that another way to give everything to God is to remember that everything in our lives, every task in our lives, all the people in our lives are put there by God and that we should work towards living a life that displays that gratefulness in God’s love.   There lies the toughest challenge for us in our daily lives.  We certainly are a work in progress when it comes to that.

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I wish you were either one or the other!  So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.  Revelation 3:15

The author goes on to say that “Jesus’ call to commitment is clear:  He wants all or nothing.  The thought of a person calling himself a “Christian” without being a devoted follower of Christ is absurd.”  We often convince ourselves that we do just enough to call ourselves Christians, when in reality we are trying to make it “easier” so we can follow Christ in a way that fits our lives.  WOW!  That statement right there is enough to get you thinking….just fitting your faith into our life.  Do we honestly think that is enough?