Lukewarm faith has become the norm, but the fire of ancient Christianity still burns—if we are but willing to bear its heat. —D.
What was once the heart’s natural heat has cooled, and we’ve grown used to the lukewarm—faith tempered, safe, manageable. We live in a time where Christianity is often worn like a well-fitted coat, comfortable and familiar, but never too heavy, never too close to the skin. The wildness of the early church—the raw, fearless trust in a Christ who upended the world—seems distant, even strange. But it was not meant to be strange. It was meant to be the marrow, the burning core.
Ancient Christianity was not radical because it sought to be; it was radical because it was real. It wasn’t propped up by habit or hollow words but rooted in lives laid bare, hearts exposed to grace, fields turned over to the Sun of Righteousness. There was no room for lukewarmness when men and women lived as though Christ’s resurrection had split the world open—because it had. They carried the weight of that truth, not as a burden, but as a fire in their bones.
Now we settle for embers, content with flickers where there must be flame. But the call has not changed. The ancient way is not distant history; it’s the road still beneath our feet, waiting for us to walk it. The question is not whether Christianity has grown radical, but whether we’ve grown numb. The faith that once turned empires inside out still burns. The difference is not in the faith itself, nor in whether the Holy Spirit rains fire from heaven, but in whether we’re willing to stand and bear the heat.