As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. — Revelation 3:19
When Robert Klose first moved into his 100-year-old house, its strange sounds were disconcerting. A carpenter told him the house was crooked. Klose admitted, “I could see it in the floors, the ceilings, the roofline, the door jambs, even the window frames. Drop a ball on the floor and it will roll away into oblivion.” Seventeen years later, the house is still holding together and he has gotten used to it and even grown to love it.
In Revelation, Jesus confronted a church that had become accustomed to its crooked spirituality and had even grown to love its inconsistencies. Laodicea was a well-to-do city. Yet that very wealth led to its delusion of self-sufficiency. This had bled into the culture of the church and produced a crooked, “we don’t need Jesus” type of spirituality. Therefore, Jesus rebuked these believers, calling them “lukewarm . . . wrecked, miserable, poor, blind and naked” (3:16-17). He rebuked them because He loved them and still wanted an ever-deepening communion with them. So He gave them opportunity to repent (v. 19).
If self-sufficiency has skewed your fellowship with Jesus you can straighten it through repentance and a renewal of intimate fellowship with Him. — Marvin Williams
Not to the world is the portion
Of fellowship sweet with God,
But to the humble believer
Who trusts in His faithful Word. — Anon.
READ: Revelation 3:14-20
Repentance is God’s way of making the crooked straight.
The Bible in one year:
• Joshua 7-9
• Luke 1:21-38