The Lord can work with passion. There is little he can do with apathy.

Perfect quote.

“I have always thought there was a great lesson
to be learned from the Lord’s words to the church of the Laodiceans in the Book of Revelation. “I know thy works,” he said, “that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou
wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm… I will spue thee out of my mouth” (3:15-16). It all reminds me of the great play Peer Gynt by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Gynt is a rascally anti-hero looking for meaning in life, but he is a person of half-measures and petty vices. In the end, he is accosted by a stand-in for
the devil, the figure of the button-molder, and he is told—to his shock and horror– that his fate is to be melted down with other mediocre villains in the button-molder’s
cauldron. Only proper sinners, he is told, deserve the more heroic end of a torment in hell. His apathetic existence more fittingly deserves simple oblivion in a pot of melted buttons. I am reminded also of Saul of Tarsus, who was wicked in a decisive, passionate way, killing Christians left and right. The Lord can work with passion. He just picked Saul up, figuratively, and pointed him in the other direction, and we get Paul the apostle. The Lord can work with passion. There is little he can do with apathy.”

I recommend this talk (“Rainbows Over the Rain: The Gospel of Superabundance”) with all my heart–it’s one of the best I’ve ever heard.

But we DO know, based on many, many things in the scriptures, that God sees us as either moving closer to Him or farther away from Him. I see this scripture as warning that you gotta choose sometime, and if you remain lukewarm you have made the wrong choice.

Now having said all that, there are atheists/agnostics who are better people than professed Christians, meaning that they are, in their own way, moving closer to God. So I would not presume to make any sweeping generalizations about such things. Was CS Lewis a really, really Bad Person when he was a professed atheist, and did he magically become a Good Person a year later when he became a professed Christian? I don’t think God sees it that way. Instead, CS Lewis was probably progressing throughout that period, and it manifested itself more and more as he aged. That’s how I see it anyway.

Interesting Geoff. So what you are saying is agnostics are not in a good place with God. So my question to you are agnostics worse off than atheists? This scripture appears to mean just that.

I am proud to report that this brother served honorably and magnified his calling.

Sometimes getting spewed out is a good thing.