Are you a thermostat or a thermometer

[rl69]

Are You a Thermostat or a Thermometer?"

Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God."—Genesis 6:9

Peter, in his second epistle, described the world's effect on two believers. Both lived in a wicked culture, yet one thrived and the other shriveled.

First there's Noah, who lived an uncompromised life. "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" and "walked with God" (Genesis 6:8, 9 NKJV). Times were so bad that wickedness was full to the brim (see Genesis 6:5), yet Noah faithfully served the Lord despite the criticism of his culture. He raised his family as believers as well, and preached to others.

On the other hand was Lot, who reluctantly left Sodom. "Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day." (2 Peter 2:8 NLT). He ended up as a leader in the city who had no influence whatsoever.

When told by angels that judgment was coming, he told his sons-in-law. They "blew him off" because they thought he was joking. The angels had to take him by the hand to get him out. He did not want to leave. He lived a compromised life, and when judgment came, he left reluctantly. He could have sung (like Tony Bennett), "I left my heart, in Sodom and Gomorrah."

No one is reached by compromise.

Which one of those men do you relate to? Are you changing culture, or is culture changing you? Are you a thermostat or are you a thermometer?

A thermometer is affected by its surroundings. Depending on the temperature, the mercury moves up or down. In contrast, a thermostat influences its surroundings. Unlike the thermometer, the thermostat controls the heat or coldness around it.

Noah was a thermostat and Lot was a thermometer.

So, what kind of a believer are you? It's easy to blame our wicked culture for the way we are but the fact of that matter is that it's our job as followers of Jesus is to permeate and affect it.

Do you influence your surroundings or do your surroundings influence you?

Greg Laurie

[Pine Baron]

Interesting thought. I think we all want to say "thermostat". However to build on this allegory, all thermostats are thermometers working within a temperature range. So I guess we all have a certain "temperature range" that we tolerate before we turn on or turn off. This begs the question. What is your temperature range?

[Boaz]

Thank you rl69 ! Good post !

[Blackwater]

Great post, RL, as usual. Thanks. I wish we could make that a motto for the next decade or two.

And Pine, you make a very good point. Some degree of tolerance pretty well has to be made because of our humanity, I think, and mine's pretty high. I'm not turned off by very much at all. I attribute that to having worked with criminals and inside prisons and jails for as long as I did. Not much shocks me any more, probably because it's so common today to encounter un-Godliness in so many ways and so typically. But the key is, that we don't let all that garbage get into US. We can't change what's without, but DO control what we let within.

And moving among the profance DOES have an influence on even the most stalwart among us, but someone has to at least TRY to do that kind of work, and to leave it to the profane as well just doesn't make a lot of sense either. It's really a thorny question, at least in some ways, but personally, I thank God for the righteous and the prison ministers that try to bring faith to the faithless. I doubt you can find a greater concentration of evil anywhere than in our prisons, and those who go in there to try to deliver any who'll just choose to be delivered have always had my highest respect. And they DO get converts sometimes that are real, and not just "jailhouse conversions." Not many, but as with the rich man who had two sons, one good and one wastrel, and when the wastrel had spent all his inheritance, and finally came home, hoping to be a servant in his father's house, the father rejoiced and gave him the best he had to give, and celebrated his return extravagantly. Lots of lessons in all this, really. But that's what makes these realizations and revelations so interesting and poignant.

Great post and great comments. Thanks for all of it. Really makes a fella' think.

[Preacher Jim]

RL that is a great post best in a long time. The true answer will shock most

[Blackwater]

Just had to come back and re-appreciate this post again. It's very significant, poignant and SO spot on! Thanks again RL. Thoughts like these matter, if we'll but let them.

[nagantguy]

To my shame and detriment, I mind myself a thermometer more often then I like.

[Blackwater]

You're not alone Nagantguy. Not by a LONG shot! That doesn't excuse any of us, of course, but it just seems to be our basic, human nature. We're very willful creatures, and even the most devout and strictly compliant people I've ever known tell me that they have fallen FAR short of what God intended for them. That being so, it's always been VERY humbling to me to then have to ask what I was doing myself! We have SO many things in this life to keep us humble, it's amazing that we can be so haughty and resentful and willful. But if you need an example of that, just look around you. You don't have to far at all, do you, to see that. All too often, all we need is to look in the mirror - a thing we should all do a lot more often. After all, the ONLY person in the world we really have control over, if we'll but execute it, is our own selves. "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And yet, Christ died on the cross for us, so we wouldn't have to bear the consequences for our sins. Is that amazing on His part, or what?