“Lukewarm”

 

In my first blog on comfort, I talked about the comfortable church and the persecuted church. I explained the differences between them and how it’s just a choice for us to make personally.  If you want to live in God’s will, you will be persecuted for it.  But that life will be the most fulfilling life you can live.  In the second blog, I talked about the parts of our walk that we want to run or hide from because they are too uncomfortable. To wrap it all up, I don’t know what to say. Over the last month of writing this trilogy, more and more ideas and thoughts on comfort have come to mind.

 

So here’s an idea.  I’ve talked in previews blogs (Working Through Some Stuff) about this thing called The Need Cycle, which is just a diagram showing how we usually have this need, and we have a choice to either do what scripture says to meet that need or to follow our own judgment. Trying to fix the need alone leads to a false belief, that false belief leads you to sin, sin leads you to shame, and then the cycle repeats.

 

So I’ve been wondering, is comfort a sin?

 

No, it isn’t. It’s actually a need. We do need comfort. We want comfort. That desire is in our nature, but we can find comfort in the wrong things, which then leads us to complacency (the false belief). So now we’ve found a place of comfort outside of God, and we are complacent about it.  We don’t change, we don’t grow, and we don’t run to God.  We don’t quite feel like we’re running away or getting worse, so our heart is neither hot or cold. What is our heart in this place? Lukewarm.

 

Lukewarm sounds pretty harmless, but it’s really one of the scariest words I know. What other word is scarier to a Christian, especially in America?  In Revelation 3:16 “So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” God will spit out the lukewarm. Those are some harsh words. At times in my life, I have seen my walk as lukewarm. I had no desire to be more like Christ, and I thought I was happy. I thought, “If I am comfortable, why change anything?” My comfort caused me to be content, and that contentment caused me to be lukewarm.

 

I’ve always wondered why I felt so lukewarm. What I’m starting to see is that, as Christians, we always look at the symptoms.  We focus on the sin we commit. We don’t look at the cause or the needs that we have in our life. Escaping that mindset will change the way we look at people stuck in sin. What could be the need behind that sin?

 

Still, how am I going to fix my lukewarm faith? Easy. I’m going to find my comfort in God! I will seek God’s will for my life, and I will try to live it out as best I can.

 

Do we really want to live in God’s will?

 

Stop and think about it! Do you want to know God’s will for your life? It’s one of the most important questions in Christianity. Will you live your life for God? Will you kill your own will, your parents will, America’s will, and any other will that you are trying to live for? Will you give God everything?

 

So where does comfort come in? Comfort means different things to different people. If we have the will to live out the American dream, our comfort might be having a 9-5 job, a big house, 2.5 kids, a boat, and frequent vacations to escape that “paradise.” If we live in our own will, we will do whatever we can to make ourselves more comfortable.  Is it really possible though?  As a Christian, something always seems missing. What if you lived in the will of God though? We can find our comfort in Him whether we are living as a missionary in the worst parts of the world or making great money in America surrounded by all the blessings God gives us.  We should find our comfort in God, not in what we do or don’t do, not in what we have or don’t have. 

 

So over the last month, I have been trying to figure this out. I want to find my comfort and peace in God while living in discomfort in this world. The more and more I think about it, the more and more I realize that it can be as simple as loving like Jesus loved. It is giving God everything (and I really mean everything). I see now that I really need to let go of my reputation, or more specifically, how I think others see me.

 

Fundraising, one of my absolute least favorite things in the world, really showed me how hard it is to let go of my reputation.  I have put this belief in myself that everything I ever do is accomplished on my own because I never want someone to say, “You only could do that because of my help.”  I didn’t want anything to be held over my head. But God has called me on this trip, and here I am still trying to avoid fundraising. 

 

As tough as it is to admit, I need help.

 

 I really didn’t want to finish my blog with this plea. It is hard and uncomfortable to ask for help. In my first edition of this blog, I didn’t even put this section in. I wanted to go in a different direction but my editor said to “lead by example and get uncomfortable for God.” I’m choosing to dive into it, and this is my first step towards getting uncomfortable with my fundraising problem.

When I signed up for the World Race, I knew I had to do some fundraising. I was fine with it. I treated it like a business at first (meaning I didn’t want anyone to give me money for doing nothing in return). It still weirds me out that people I’ve never met have given me support. My latest approach to raising money is simply letting God take care of it, while I just sit back and watch. I still believe that God will take care of it, but I think He just used this blog about discomfort to put me in the middle of my discomfort: to ask people, again, for help. So to take the first step down this journey…..

 

Introducing the Lucas Hultgren Dare to Donate Campaign!!?!?!

 

Here’s how it works: email me or text me or facebook me or comment on my blogs with a dare and a dollar amount that you will give if I do this dare. Who knows, if you have a good one you might find a couple of people to pitch in to really get me do it. For example, Justin and Tessie have been dared to shave his head and reenact a photo shoot. Get creative. You come up with ideas, and I will tell you yes or no (no messing with the beard though).

 

I have so many more thoughts on comfort, but these are the points I think I needed to share. I made this trilogy because it is a really hard topic, and it is uncomfortable to talk about, but what better way to talk about discomfort than by sitting in it. At times while writing this blog, I wanted to stop and put something else in, but that is just hiding from what I am saying. I hope you have read this not as “I have got this all figured out,” but more along the lines of how I am working through this.  I hoped you might be encouraged by my ideas and thoughts.

 

Please leave any comments or thoughts below

 

God bless,

Lucas Hultgren