The Fire Has To Be Tended | Joanna Young-Radke & Pastor Chip Radke

The Fire Has to Be Tended: A Call Back to Authentic Faith
There is a question worth sitting with before reading another word: When did we become comfortable?
Not comfortable in the sense of rest or peace, but comfortable in the sense of settling. Comfortable with a version of Christianity that fits neatly into our schedules, offends no one, and costs us very little. Comfortable with things that once brought us to our knees. Comfortable with a casual relationship with the living God.
This is not a question aimed at someone else. It begins with each of us, individually, honestly, in the quiet places where no one else is watching.
The Danger of Not Knowing You Have Grown Cold
In Revelation 3, Jesus addresses the church at Laodicea with words that are difficult to read and impossible to dismiss. He tells them that because they are neither cold nor hot, he will spit them out of his mouth. But what makes this passage especially sobering is not just the condition of the church. It is that the church did not even recognize its own condition. They believed they were rich, prosperous, and in need of nothing. Jesus saw something entirely different. He saw a people who were spiritually wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
They had one opinion of themselves. Jesus had another.
That gap between self-perception and spiritual reality should give every believer pause. It is entirely possible to be comfortable with your spiritual condition while Jesus is calling you to repentance. It is possible to have a full calendar and an empty prayer life. It is possible to have a position in the church while neglecting your personal walk with Christ. It is possible to know the songs, lift your hands, and speak the language of faith fluently, while the fire inside has quietly been dying for years.
Jesus was not addressing unbelievers in that passage. He was addressing the church.
What Happens When Truth Gets Watered Down
In 2 Timothy 4, the apostle Paul warned that a time would come when people would not endure sound doctrine, when they would surround themselves with teachers who tell them only what they want to hear, turning away from truth and toward something far more comfortable. That time is not coming. It is here.
There is a growing temptation to make Christianity more acceptable by removing the parts that confront us. To soften the message. To preach the promises of God while quietly setting aside his correction. To celebrate grace while ignoring what grace actually teaches us.
But Titus 2:11-12 makes it clear that the grace of God does not simply pardon us. It trains us. It teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live differently. Grace that leaves us comfortable in sin is not the grace of scripture. Biblical grace transforms. It convicts. It shapes. And it calls us to something higher than we could reach on our own.
We were never given the authority to rewrite what God has spoken simply because culture has shifted. The word of God is not a document to be revised when it becomes inconvenient. It is the living truth by which we are measured, not the other way around.
The Cost of Living for Approval
Galatians 1:10 poses a direct question: are we seeking to please God or to please people? The answer to that question quietly governs more of our lives than most of us would like to admit.
When the desire for acceptance becomes stronger than the commitment to obedience, compromise follows. It rarely happens all at once. It happens in small concessions. Just this once. It is not that serious. Everyone else is doing it. God understands.
And God does understand our weakness. He is merciful and compassionate. But his mercy was never intended to become an excuse for refusing to repent. Mark 8:36 asks what it profits a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul. The same logic applies to gaining acceptance, influence, or applause while slowly surrendering the convictions that once defined your walk with Christ.
Think of Esau in Genesis 25, trading his birthright for a single meal because an immediate appetite felt more urgent than something of lasting value. The warning is clear: be careful what you are willing to surrender to satisfy something that will not last.
Reverence Restores Intimacy
Psalm 25:14 tells us that the secret of the Lord is with those who fear him. One of the quiet casualties of spiritual complacency is the loss of reverence. We become so familiar with talking about God that we forget the holiness of the one we are talking about. The promises of scripture become wall art. The worship songs become background music. The word of God becomes something we consult only when it already agrees with us.
But reverence is not terror. It is a deep recognition of who God is. It is the awareness that he is holy, that he is sovereign, and that the invitation he extends to us through Jesus Christ is not ordinary. The creator of everything, who needs nothing from us, has chosen to welcome us into his family. How could we ever treat that casually?
John 14:15 connects love and obedience directly. If you love him, you keep his commandments. Not because obedience earns his love, but because genuine love changes how we respond to his word.
The Fire Must Be Tended
Leviticus 6:12-13 describes the responsibility of the priests to maintain the fire on the altar every single morning. Wood had to be added. Ashes had to be cleared. The fire was never to go out. It required intentional, daily attention.
That image speaks directly to the life of faith. A deep prayer life does not develop accidentally. Spiritual maturity is not stumbled into. Consistent obedience does not happen by default. These things grow as we make deliberate room for God in our daily lives, returning to him not just on Sunday mornings but in the ordinary, unobserved moments of every day.
The fields are white. The harvest is ready. And the fire in you is worth tending.
Return to what you may have neglected. Open the word when you are tired. Pray when nothing feels extraordinary. Love the people around you enough to tell them the truth. And refuse to trade the depth of what God is offering for the shallow comfort of simply fitting in.
He is still knocking. The question is whether we will open the door.