Did you ever wish you could get a letter from God? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a straight line of communication with the Almighty and figure out just exactly what it was we needed to do at any given moment? There really is a letter written to us with just this type of information in it. Actually, there are seven letters that the Apostle John received in a vision from Christ, but the one I am thinking of is the letter to the church at Laodicea found in the third chapter of Revelation. It seems to describe where we are at in our experience with God at this point in history. It is full of symbolism regarding gnosis.
The letter starts with a summary of the condition of the human heart when it is wrapped in religious garb but not on fire with Spirit. This condition is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. The only thing acceptable at lukewarm temperatures is a baby’s bottle. Even God finds this condition un-tasty and the verse says, “Because you are not hot or cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
At first glimpse this sounds rather thoughtless of God. Especially when we have grown to know God as a God of love and compassion. But the act of spitting itself is symbolic. We are a spark—an aspect—of God. God created us in order to expand God’s Self and learn from our experiences on earth as an aspect of God. When God discovers that we cannot be ingested as palatable information, we are spit back into our experiences in order to continue learning, to become either hot or cold. Half-baked, or an unenlightened state doesn’t give God any new information. Needless to say, it doesn’t do much for us, either.
God is not abandoning us, God is enabling us to further grow, learn, and develop. The chapter continues with valuable information about how we are to do this. God counsels us on how to grow and develop into fully alive, vibrant human beings. The first piece of advice is to buy from God gold tried by fire.
Here is where we discover that although salvation might be “free” (Christ built the bridge back to God) discipleship or growing in Christ costs us something. We have to spend something in order to receive the gold tried by fire. In reality, the only commodity that we have to purchase something from God with is ourselves. We must spend our life, our time, in order to purchase the gold. Gold is symbolic of faith. Faith is our trust relationship with God.
To paraphrase this idea we might say that we are to spend our time and effort in relationship with God acknowledging our life experiences as our teachers. It is a faith tried by the fire or the difficulties we encounter on this planet. Our faith is perfected and strengthened into a growing, trusting relationship of faithfulness with the Spirit. It is purchased with our commitment and loyalty to God throughout the ups and downs of life. It thus takes the dross from life and turns it into gold. This is spiritual alchemy.
The next bit of advice is that we buy from God clothing to cover our nakedness. This is reminiscent of the story in Genesis about the fall of man when Adam and Eve were found in the Garden of Eden naked before their Creator. They had fashioned clothing of fig leaves in which to hide. They had previously been covered with light.
By choosing to taste of good and evil they forfeited their covering of light and now knew the darkness as well—thus their nakedness. To purchase a new covering of light from God is not only to accept the way back to God made available to us through Christ but to spend our time seeking to be filled with light and to make ourselves available to God to spread light to the world. This is the purpose of spiritual practice in our lives. Because we have tasted of good and evil, we must stay connected to the Christ power in order to remain filled with light. This is a daily process. The more time we spend connected to the Divine power supply, the greater light we are able to hold. Of course, the opposite is true, also.
In addition to clothing, we are counseled to purchase eye salve in order that we might see. This too is accomplished through spiritual practice and meditation in particular. Spiritual knowing requires a new type of seeing. It is through the indwelling Spirit of God that we are given new eyes. Many of Jesus’ healing miracles involved the restoration of people’s sight—not just their physical eyesight, but their spiritual eyesight as well.
Through the practice of meditation the Spirit is enabled to build a deeper type of knowing and seeing that we could never have on our own. These are spiritual gifts and they become more and more important in a disciple’s walk with God and one’s ministry in the world. The people of Jesus’ day were accused of “having eyes but not seeing, and having ears, but not hearing.” The same could be said of us today.
The counsel ends with a beautiful invitation to a deeper knowing or gnosis of God. It says, “Behold, or Look, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone (not just some, but anyone) will open the door, I will come in and eat supper with them.” God wants to have an intimate experience with us. Sharing food at our table and looking us right in the eyes. God wants to know us and know the world through us.
But God never intrudes. We are given great Gnostic treasures in these versus. They are a roadmap to a deeper knowing of God. The invitation is extended. When you’re ready, why not give a closer walk with God a try?
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