Speaker 1Welcome to Day 18, Intimacy 30, and it's a joy to bring you again God's Word as we build our intimacy with the Lord. And we've been looking at, over the last couple of days, the hindrances to intimacy. We started out with sin consciousness, and I think yesterday we looked at what a lack of consistency is, how that is unfaithfulness in scriptures, you know, and all that. Now, today I want to get into something else that I think is extremely important. It is called slotfulness, the matter of slotfulness. Now, the truth of the matter is that until I studied this subject, I saw it in scriptures, but I didn't know how major it was. And the real meaning, the real impact of slotfulness, and that's what I want to share with you. Now, I'll start out by reading Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews, the sixth chapter, and the twelfth verse were all acquainted with that scripture. He says that he be not slotful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promise. So he said, be not slotful, but be followers of them who through faith and patience. Now, when we read the word slotfulness, we see that it's a promise. Now, when we read the word slothful, we think many a times it's referring to laziness. We see that it's a promise. And whilst laziness is included in it, it means far more than laziness. It's talking about neutrality, passionlessness. Oh, yes. And that's where a lot of believers get to in their walk with the Lord, where we become passionless. Okay. In this case, you still show up, but you don't show up. And what I mean is that you are still there. You maintain the motions. How many of you know what I'm talking about? Pray in tongues. You can go one hour, just like a machine. But you know that you have lost that passion. You have lost that presence of mind, if I were to use natural terminologies. You've lost that presence of mind. You maintain the external emotions, but internally, that presence of mind is completely gone. And so, slothfulness is a major, major, major problem in building intimacy with the Lord. Now, what does slothfulness mean? It means something that has lost its speed or momentum. It's still moving, but it's not the same velocity, not the same passion, not the same aggressiveness, aggression that it once possessed. The zeal has waned off, and now you have become neutral. It is what John saw in the book of Revelations where he says that you are neither lukewarm, you are neither hot nor cold. Many years back, I did a teaching around this subject of slothfulness, and I was explaining to them that when he said you are neither hot nor cold, he was referring to actually a physical situation that they could see. The church he was writing to was in a city that had hot springs in another city beside it and cold springs here. And so the emperor of that city wanted the hot springs to come into his city. And so he created a tunnel or something like that. Well, by the time the waters came into the city, it was neither hot nor cold. and then he had um taking on the taste of the vessels the channels um maybe for example how you know water can have lead in it and it's taste tasting of lead or chlorine or something like that and so usually by the time they drink the water um try to deepen the water it's neither hot nor cold and then the taste was very unpalatable to the mouth so when he says that you're neither hot nor cold he says um you're lukewarm and he will spill you out of his mouth that's what he was referring to that was the picture of what he was referring to now but the point is this he says that that that water that was so um repulsive to the people that nobody wanted to have anything to do with it is that it's the same thing when a believer becomes lukewarm when a believer becomes slothful slothfulness is something we have to fight with all of our might and our strength and oh by the way slothfulness creeps on each and every one of us very easily by the time you do something long enough, you learn how to show up without showing up. You learn how to be there without being there. You learn how to continue the tongues without praying in tongues. Anything that has some measure of consistency in it will always lead to slothfulness if you're not intentional about it. Number two thing to notice is that the more knowledge you have, the more likely you're to be slothful about a thing now remember this even though in some cases naturally speaking it helps you but remember this when you are learning how to drive the car every action you took you took by heart you took with intent and desire you moved the gear and you were thinking okay so this is this and then you were turning everything but the moment you get used to driving in a car. The more knowledge you have about it, the more lack of presence you have. You can just do it. And that's what happens with a lot of us. The problem is that when it comes to actions, when it comes to activities, well, that might even be a blessing. That might be a plus so that you can multitask and do other things. But when it comes to relationship, that is a negative. And I'm not just talking about spiritual relationship. I'm talking about even natural relationships. That when you are, for example, date night, you just go on the date night. You are eating the meal together, looking at each other, and then we have done date night. No, it's not just about being at the table and eating the meal. It's the emotion shared, the conversations had, the intentionality to connect with the other person. And it's the same thing in our relationship with the Lord, that if we're not careful with time, the more knowledge you have, the more revelation in quotes you seem to have, the more you're exposed to the word of God, the more your passion and your zeal may die off. And that the more you do things on a regular basis, the more your passion and your zeal may die off. And so that's why it's important that we are intentional to rebuild our passion, to fan our passion to flame, fan our zeal to flame, and ensure that you are not just doing things by rote, by religious, just as religiously as expected of you. You open the Bible and you're looking at it and all the rest. You are intentional to keep your zeal and your passion alive. It takes passion to build intimacy. You see, in fact, one of the ideas of intimacy, one of the pictures of intimacy is passion, which means when you say two people are intimate together, you are saying that there's some form of sparks, there's some form of passion that they have between themselves. Now, what do you do when you realize you've come to a place of slothfulness? Let me tell you this, slothfulness is such a big deal with God that we must learn to repent. We must learn to say, Lord, I repent for being casual about you. And then you ask the Lord to fan the embers in your heart till they become a flame. Can I tell you something? The only place to catch fire is where fire is burning. And it's in the presence of the Lord that fire is burning. So you get back there and you ask that the Lord will rekindle a fire in your heart. Every now and then, every one of us has to get back to this place. Because if we continue doing what we're doing, easily and steadily, we come to a place of slothfulness. If we keep growing in knowledge easily and steadily, we come to a place of slothfulness. And so we always have to come back into his presence and ask that the fires will be rekindled. Now I pray for you. May the fire on the altar of your heart be rekindled in the name of Jesus. Please make sure you comment on this video. Make sure you share it. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Tell somebody about it. Put it on your WhatsApp status. Let the algorithm do its thing by seeing you engage with it and let the world be blessed by what we're sharing here. I'll see you same time tomorrow. God bless you.
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