Series | Repentance

There is only one approach to receive His generous gifts offered in verse 18. There is only one path to escape spiritual poverty, shame, and blindness. There is only one source of fulfillment, honor, and sight. There is only one program to exchange indifference and ignorance for intensity, only one way to avoid being spit out of Christ’s mouth: repentance.

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

According to verse 19, Jesus doesn’t leave the ones He loves in a lukewarm condition, at least not for long. He will reprove and discipline; He will correct and train. In this context of spiritual lukewarmness, the design of Jesus’ discipline is to fire up His beloved.

At least two implications stand out about Christ’s loving correction. First, do we realize that conviction is a blessing? If we don’t know something is wrong we’re unlikely to seek a remedy. Perhaps our current misery is a training grace to turn our attention to the One who makes rich.

Second, do we realize that indifference is a judgment? Apathy is bad. Ignorant apathy is worse. Being left in ignorant apathy is the worst! God curses us when He affords us with what we think we want. Unchecked unconcern not only leaves us in the ditch, it also demonstrates we are not loved by Jesus.

I’m afraid this is where many in our churches are today. Things aren’t good, around us or in us, and we don’t care. We go on, desperately trying to act like things are okay. Our affections are lukewarm. But if our love is regularly running low, we may be experiencing God’s judgment, not His blessing.

He doesn’t allow His own to go on unaware forever. His tender, loving discipline brings those He loves to repentance.

So be zealous and repent. These are the two imperatives. The indictment is not final or irreversible, if we will repent. “Lukewarmness is not necessarily terminal” (Thomas 318), and that is good news.

The first command is Be zealous. It confronted the predominant Laodicean problem. Jesus required His followers to be hot, on fire, boiling over with zeal. The command to be zealous comes first for emphasis, but second in sequence.

That’s because the spiritual heart-fires spark when we repent. Proper passion is the result of repentance, otherwise we could be (presumably, and incongruously) excited about being cold.

Repent fundamentally means “change one’s mind.” Repentance includes ownership of our wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked state. Repentance makes no claims of possessing what we need. Repentance turns from self-sufficiency, self-righteousness, and self-justification. It comes with empty hands to the only One who can fill them.

We wrongly think about repentance as giving up what we really love for what someone told us we should like better. With reluctance we turn away from what was sure to please us in the past, even though the pleasure was temporary. But we miss that repentance is not a turning from pleasure to empty handedness. Repentance is a turning from a mirage of pleasures to the real, highest, and substantial pleasures. He makes rich! He covers our nakedness! He opens our eyes to finally see what is truly glorious! And the doorway into spiritual fullness is repentance.