Susanne Maynes

Sometimes I wonder how I am doing spiritually.  Am I becoming more like Jesus, or stagnating? Jesus said He would spit the lukewarm out of His mouth, and I sure don’t want that.

So I ask myself some questions to try to measure this phenomenon, such as:

Have I been reading and studying my Bible?  What good books on theology have I read lately? Am I doing the discipline of daily devotions? Am I listening to worship music and worshiping fervently with other believers? Am I serving at church?

At first glance, these might seem like good questions to use as markers on our spiritual condition. There’s just one problem. They can only measure externals.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the second greatest is to love our neighbor as our self. He also said others would know we are his followers by our love.

Love is really the only barometer that tells us our spiritual condition. Am I loving God with all my guts, and loving other people just as much as I love myself (which honestly could almost be called an obsession)?  If yes, then boom.  Doing great.

Reading, studying, praying and serving will naturally result from that love relationship.  The revealing question isn’t whether we are practicing the externals; it’s the one Jesus asked Peter three times.

 Do you love me?

I think real love looks like time spent. Making Him top priority. Staying in touch all day long. Finding out what is on His heart. Responding to Him with humility, gratitude and obedience. Taking joy in His presence. Stopping to pay attention to the people He notices. Abandoning my agenda for His.

Real love is more about knowing, and less about a to-do list of spiritual chores.  Passion, not duty, is what keeps us from being lukewarm Christians.

So, how’s your spiritual temperature these days?

It takes a lot more emotional energy to set the world straight than it does to simply forgive those who offend us and move on. I needed to refill a prescription that I was almost out of.  I called it in, but the doctor’s office had gotten behind, and the girl told me in a rather testy tone that I needed to give them forty-eight hours notice next time. Fair enough, I thought, and decided to check on Monday to see if the pharmacy had gotten the order. They did not. By Tuesday, I had made a total of six phone calls between the pharmacy and the doctor’s office. Finally, the same girl, in the Continue Reading