Jesus’ letter to the church in Laodicea delivers an indictment of what is wrong, instruction for how to fix it, and an invitation to something better. If we will listen, Jesus is inviting us to let go of our self-sufficiency, turn to him for what we really need, and do life in fellowship with him. We need Jesus!

We obey Jesus because of what he gives: forgiveness, clear vision, a good heart, and a strong foundation. 

The wilderness. The desert. A hostile, dangerous and uncomfortable place. It is a surprising place to find the people God has rescued from slavery with the promise and hope of a new life. But that’s where we are. Let’s consider how God sustains us in our wilderness experience.

We tend to think too highly of ourselves and our ability to plan the future. James points out the sobering reality that we are not in control—and the arrogance of acting like we are. One of the ways our faith “works” is by submitting to and doing God’s will instead of our own.

Is your faith the real thing? The genuineness of your ‘religion’ is verifiable. One of the challenges we face as followers of Jesus is genuineness – keeping and living out our faith in an authentic way. One of the greatest challenges we have as a community of believers is to help each other stay on the course of genuine, Bible obeying, Christ focused spirituality. For both you as an individual and us as a church, the greater danger is not apostasy – adopting false teaching but accepting an artificial spirituality – doing Christianity in a way that seems acceptable or even impressive but is not the real thing.