Revelation 3:14-22 To Laodicea: Buy gold refined by fire

Revelation 3:14-22 Jesus' words to the Laodiceans are perhaps the most troubling because they could apply to any of us. We can readily tell if we fall into gross sin; heresy is usually apparent; idolatry can be recognized; but losing our first love, the zeal of our love for God, of becoming lukewarm, is difficult to overcome. Everything seems ok. But the perennial problem of worldly success and affluence is the loss of focus on spiritual things. If the world we live in is comfortable and secure, we almost believe we don't need God. That is, we don't need God to save us. We don't see our true spiritual condition. Jesus describes it here. We are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, and we don't even know it. Jesus' advice: buy gold refined by fire, white garments, and eye salve. Otherwise, He will vomit us out of His mouth.

          How do we buy these things? The coin of the spiritual realm is sacrificial love and suffering. This is not to say that we should seek out suffering. But opportunities for sacrificial love abound; they will seek us out. The Lord will arrange them. We simply need to respond. These things that The Lord brings to us will cost us comfort and security. We will feel like fools for giving away our treasure to the poor who will squander it and aren't even grateful. We may be ridiculed for rejecting material gain and suffering needlessly. That is the purpose of sacrificial love and suffering The Lord brings us. We can only gain spiritual treasure (Matthew 6:19-20) when we realize that we are totally dependent on Christ for everything that really matters, and act on that realization (John 15:5). If we arrange our lives so that we are secure and comfortable, then we have gone precisely the wrong direction. Jesus promises to reprove and discipline those He loves. If His reproof and discipline are absent from our lives, we have cause to worry.

          Jesus' advice to repent is followed by an explanation of how this is possible. He hasn't given up on the Laodiceans, he is knocking at their door. This spiritual door has often been called the door of the heart, but it might also be understood as the door to a person's life, which would be a person's will; His voice speaking to us, inviting us to make a decision of the will. He promises to come in when invited (but not otherwise). The Lord's Supper speaks symbolically of the consummation of this relationship. But it is clear that the Laodiceans to whom He speaks, even if they practice the ordinance, do not practice it in faith and so it is an empty ritual.

          The final promise of sitting with Christ on His throne parallels other promises relating to the kingdom of God. This is still a possibility for those Laodiceans who repent.