Lukewarm Crops & Laodiceans

Part 2:

Recovering from Mistakes

         The Laodiceans recovered from their problems, later becoming an important center of the early church, and we recovered from ours. There is something to be learned from how those recoveries came about. Three things come to mind.

         The first is not giving up. Jesus didn’t wash His hands of the Laodiceans, but instead offered help in hopes of their once again producing the fruit He was looking for.  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 in all the beds and substituting back plastic in some.  That took some humility, we had originally switched to wood chips from black plastic and reversing course was an acknowledgement that we (or more accurately I) had messed up. Jesus prescribed similar measures for the Laodiceans, things that involved their humbling themselves and recognizing that they had erred. See Revelation 3:17-19. That principle runs throughout scripture. See e.g. Proverbs 15:31-33, Proverbs 19:20,  James 4:10, 1 Peter 5:6.

         The third is actually removing the things that block the Son/sun. We see that in Jesus’ instructions to Laodiceans. He tells them remove the barriers between He and them so He can come in and bless them. See Revelation 3:20. Similarly, we had to remove our wood chips to grow successful follow on crops.