April 18 | Revelation 3:14-21

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DAILY READING

Revelation 3:14-21

REFLECTION

Lukewarm Crops & Laodiceans

By Todd Marti

Even the richest soil produces a disappointing crop if the gardener doesn’t let the sun warm it. The UALC Community Garden learned that the hard way in 2015. 

The previous year we focused on improving our soil.  It was nice and dark, loaded with worms, when we planted our summer crops. It looked like we were on track for a good harvest.

Then we made our mistake: we put a thick mulch of wood chips down before the soil fully warmed up, keeping the sun from fully warming it. That looked great, and kept the weeds away, but it also kept the soil temperature down. The result was a disappointing crop.

A similar dynamic controls our spiritual lives. In  Revelation 3:14-21  St. John delivered Jesus’ message to the church at Laodicea. It was materially rich, but was not producing the fruit Jesus wanted because it had not opened itself to the fire of His love. Something got between the Laodiceans and the Son, just as something got between our soil and the sun. The results were similar. Both were only “lukewarm.” Jesus was no more satisfied with the Laodiceans than we were with our crop. 

The Laodiceans recovered from their mistake, we recovered from ours, and there are things to be learned from those recoveries. Three come to mind.

The first is not giving up. Jesus didn’t wash His hands of the Laodiceans, but offered help in hopes of their once again producing fruit.  We didn’t quit on our crops either, but made changes that enhanced productivity. The point is that we can recover from our missteps, and God is eager to help us do that. See Luke 15.

The second is humbly accepting corrective measures. With us, it was removing the wood chips and substituting back plastic.  That took some humility; we had originally switched to wood chips from black plastic, reversing course was an acknowledgement that we had messed up. Jesus prescribed similar measures for the Laodiceans, things that involved them humbly recognizing their errors. See Revelation 3:17-19. That principle runs throughout scripture; God improves things when we humbly repent of our errors. See e.g. Proverbs 15:31-33; Proverbs 19:20;  James 4:10; 1 Peter 5:6.

Third, God turned those missteps to the good. We saw that with the wood chips. Once we started removing them, we discovered that most had partially decomposed, creating a layer of rich organic material that grew strong follow-on crops.  Similar good came from the problems at Laodicea; Jesus’ message to that church has informed and reformed millions over the years. Indeed, a quick search reveals many sermons and commentaries, each of which helped Christ followers grow closer to Him. Those probably represent only a small portion of the good God brought out of that unfortunate situation.

We shouldn’t be surprised; scripture repeatedly documents that pattern. Consider Joseph; God turned his pride and his brothers’ resentment to the good by using the consequences of that dysfunction to put Joseph in a position to preserve God’s people from a severe famine. Consider St. Paul; God turned his misguided zeal against the early church, and his sincere regret, into a powerful example of how He can turn redeem even the most egregious sinners. He can do that for us too if we humbly submit to His correction.

PRAYER

Holy Spirit, please give us the perception to recognize our missteps and the humility to accept your loving correction.  We ask this in Jesus’ name.

(Credit where credit is due. This is excerpted from several posts collected at Learning from the Laodiceans (Revelation 3:14-22)  which in turn were based on a sermon Dave Mann preached on February, 28, 2016.)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TODD MARTI

I have been connected to UALC since 2000 in various small groups and as a co-manager of the UALC Community Garden. I’m married to Kelly Marti, and the proud father of Sarah Marti. I am happy to be writing these devotions.