Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Revelation chapter 3 verses 15 through 18:
15 ‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. 16So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.” You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich . . .
The Lesson this morning comes from words written to the church at Laodicea, a church which was rich in wealth but poor in spirit.
It was wealthy, but it had not suffered. And, I imagine, it had not suffered because it had not risked. That is how it was wealthy. It’s wealth was a sign of its caution.
The words come to the church of Laodicea that it is to buy a “gold refined by fire”.
This is a summons to courage. A call to care and action. A charge to risk.
William Sloane Coffin had a phrase in his famous benediction that Steve Shoemaker adapted and used week by week here at Broadway:
“To risk something big for something good.”
That was a word for the church at Laodicea.
It’s a word for any church ready to see that the gold refined by fire is a good that is better than the green that can’t bear even tiniest of little flames.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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