Bubbling up from the earth it’s steaming hot. The alchemy of oxygen and hydrogen mixed with sulfur. Liquid fire. Melting impurities and vitamins encrusted like rubies in the water. Soaking. Saturating the skin.

I can feel the touch of icy coolness encroaching. It’s just under 30 degrees nestled in the mountains and the chilling air is crystallizing droplets of water forming on my skin.

It’s the junction where 212 degrees and 32 degrees spark like alloys melting and reforming. Minerals gushing out of the earth. Fountains seeping in.

It’s a hot spring. Pagosa Springs, Colorado to be exact and one of my favorite destinations. It’s the synesthesia of hot and cold riveting the essence of the human core when submerged in steaming liquid galore simmering on a winter’s night. Where snowflakes long to join in the occasion and do. I can see them descending from heights above. Starlight reflecting in the gems adorning me from the snowfall crowning. I bask half submerged inhaling the elements of a liquid catharsis, by the river where degrees now descend into the single digits.

Jesus Your creation invigorates me

captivates me

rejuvenates me

enlightens me

with holy wonder

transcending all I thought I knew

there’s more I can feel

in the presence

You reveal

and never stop revealing

I want to feel

more

of everything You’ve made

Lord

Fire and ice. Hot and cold. The river below flows both wild and tame. Dichotomies are like that. The polarization of a high and low purging out the neutral to find its place on the spectrum.

Where do you land?

I feel the Lord beckoning His people to make their claim… to make their vow… just as He has to them.

In Revelation chapter 3, God is speaking to the 7 churches in the last days, warnings and judgments before His coming. He speaks to the churches… notice that. Places where worship is intended to reside… yet here we see impurities, apathy, wickedness and other gods infiltrating and God is furious at the sight of it. He won’t share His bride with another.

The Bride of Christ belongs solely to God… and we to Him.

Do you want God with all your heart or not?

God says, ‘’‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! ” Revelation 3:15-16

God has strong feelings about neutrality.

It ruins His appetite.

For anything that’s neutral in its affection towards Him is mediocre.

Mediocrity has no place in the kingdom of God.

This passage in Revelation 3 is so poignant through the hot and cold… fire and ice dichotomy because it reminds us God does want our love… and our vibrant love! Not a dainty, soft love. No… He wants a firey love! A thrilling love!

God is a ferocious lover and He deserves a zealous Bride.

In the Greek text of this scripture Revelation 3:15-16, the word “fire” is the Greek word “zestos.” It gives punch, life, spark, fervor. Specifically it’s “fervor of mind.”

In the Greek text for the word “cold,” it is “psychros” and it gives clarity, crispness, sharpness, alertness. It means “focus of mind. “

We need both.

The hot and the cold.

Fervor and focus.

Intensity and clarity.

Passion and sharpness.

What we don’t need is the lukewarm…

It doesn’t add any fervor nor focus.

God uses the word “lukewarm” because it describes the essence of medicrity in every sense of context.

Lukewarm food robs taste from the tastebuds meant to experience the richness of flavor. Lukewarm water in the therapeutic sense, adds no muscular enhancement nor catharsis. It’s only when the water is heated can it relax and heal the muscles within the body. So it is with cold water that the muscles are revitalized. Athletes know this phenomenon well, as the dynamic and hot and cold water treatment is used for bodily recovery and muscle therapy.

Healing arises from the hot and cold.

The vibrant and alive.

The passionate and the calming.

The Lion and the Lamb. 

I wish you could be hot or cold! He says!

“Do not lag in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” Romans 12:11

God wants both the hot and the cold, because they both provide agents of life. It’s not a dichotomy of hot equalling “yes” and cold equalling “no.” It’s about neutrality equalling “no” and the hot & cold collectively equalling “yes.” To possess the ability to be both hot and cold means to be fully alive.

God is saying to rid out the neutral ground where no life is generated.

Purge out the mediocrity.

Enliven the passion! Stir your zeal! The Lord is close and He does not seek a half-hearted lover! He desires your every heartbeat and your every kiss…

I hear the Lord saying… “I want your kisses…”

He wants your love…

But if you are going to come to Him lukewarm He says don’t bother. He’s not interested in mediocre. He wants the fire… the ice… the vibrant life that accompanies a soul consumed with the all-consuming God.

God wants your fiercest devotion.

Nothing less.

Move away from the neutral and dive into the fire… absorb the ice… it’s time. He’s saying it’s time to dive deeper into the eternal with Him.

In all the earth, I hear Him beckoning hearts to see Him for who He is. To choose this day if they long to be His or not. Hot and cold. Not neutral nor apathetic. Not indifferent.

God says, “I will spit you out of my mouth” if you will not make up your mind about Me. God will not be shared with another. God will not be a second lover. He is the first.

When God interacts with us in His hot and cold nature, we cannot turn away lest we miss the growth our hearts were designed to grow into.

Refinement neccesitates both fire and ice.

“All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!” Revelation 3:19

God is serious about us growing into who we were designed to be. It’s the discipline of the Lord that makes us better. Sharper. Crisper. Powerful.

You won’t grow into greatness looking in your own mirror.

It’s only from gazing upon fire of the Lord burning higher that gold is forged…

…In the mirror of Jesus’ image where sin was scorged.

We look at Him. And we change all the while. Letting Him cut away the parts of us that aren’t needed to thrive.

This is why God says if you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because there’s nothing alive in what’s lukewarm.

God cannot have a relationship with something lukewarm nor does He want to.

Oh I wish that you would be hot or cold! He says!

He wants you fire…
He wants your focus…

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:2

Things above…

Snowflakes are falling more intermitently now, as twilight falls. Temperature mirroring the cascading.

I dip into the water…

Rush… rush… rush…

I can feel the burning auroa on my face intensified by the contrast of what’s frozen meeting the blazing. Like a kind of ecstasy angels see when they gaze upon the Heavenly hosts of seraphim singing holy holy holy before the Lord… The King of glory. Where highest of cosmos collide as the universe bows to sing of His worth. Let Your beauty ignite as our passion revives the earth. Jesus… come and kiss us again and again!

Jesus the Lamb of God

He’s King over all the

cosmos

Creator of all the

grandiose

alive in the night

with fire so bright

and everything knows

He is Lord

may we never forget it

Oh that you would be hot or cold! He says…

I’m here Lord… I’ll be hot and cold for you forever. Burning then refreshing for You… flaring then thawing for you… smoultering then soothing for You… because You want me to.

You want me to.

“Zeal for Your house has consumed me…” Psalm 69:9 

Taken by you I’m fully consumed, Lord… Lift me off the ground and I am found in the moment of thrill where fire and ice collectively ignite me. It’s more than thrilling… more than chilling… every feeling You authored to compelling my existence to fuse with You, my King.

Drowning… sinking… rising… floating… let the fire and ice consume me.

“I will grant the one who conquers permission to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne.”

Revelation 3:21