September 26 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth" (Rev. 3:15–16).

Devotional

Of all spiritual states, lukewarmness is the most abhorrent to God the Father. It is the most grieving to the Holy Spirit. It is the state of which Christ declares his utter detestation.

And yet, who contemplates it in this awful light? Who pauses to examine himself? Do you take the time to ascertain what real progress your soul is making? What grace is enfeebled? What part of the Spirit's work is decayed? What spot of your soul is barren and unfruitful? How far are you secretly and effectually grieving the Holy Spirit by a known, allowed, and cherished state of spiritual declension?

How it must affect the architect, after all his skill and effort, to witness the decay of his building. How it must distress the parent, after his costly expenditure of means in education, to witness the fond hopes he cherished for his child blasted. But how infinitely more is the Spirit affected to behold the temple he had erected at such a cost falling to decay. How infinitely more is the Spirit grieved to see the soul he had taught with such care and solicitude receding into a state of coldness and formality in its spiritual duties and affections! John Owen beautifully remarks,

"The heart of the Spirit is infinitely more tender towards us than that of the most affectionate parent can be towards an only child. And when he with cost and care has nourished and brought us up into some growth and progress in spiritual affections, wherein all his concerns in us do lie, for us to grow cold, dull, earthly-minded, to cleave unto the pleasures and lusts of this world, how is he grieved, how is he provoked!"

See, then, that your spiritual state is such that it occasions joy rather than grief to the Holy Spirit of God. Nothing can fill his loving heart with greater and more holy delight than to witness the deepening character and expanding influence of his own work in the believer. To behold the glimmering light, which he created, "shining brighter and brighter" (Prov. 4:18), to see the gentle plant emitting its fragrance and putting forth its fruit, to watch the well-spring in the heart rising heavenward, God-ward—such a picture must be beautiful to the Spirit.

If the enthroned Redeemer looks down with satisfaction upon the travail of his soul in the calling in of his redeemed, then it must be equally joyous to the Eternal Spirit to behold the widening of his kingdom in the saints. He must rejoice to see the maturing of the soul for the inheritance and the companionship of "the righteous made perfect" (Heb. 12:23).

Indeed, to mark a growing conformity to the image of Christ—holiness expanding its root, each grace in active exercise, every weight cast aside, every sin mortified, and the whole body, soul, and spirit a rising temple to God—such a sight must fill all heaven with joy.

O Christian reader, see well to your state, that the Holy Spirit of God is not grieved at any known and cherished erosion of his work in the soul.

Christ, of all my hopes the ground,
Christ, the spring of all my joy,
still in thee may I be found,
still for thee my pow'rs employ.

(Ralph Wardlaw, 1817)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.