Have you ever caught yourself saying, “I love Jesus, but I’m just not ready to fully commit”?

If so, you’re not alone.

In this article, we’ll walk through five crucial pillars that you need to help you move beyond lukewarm faith and deepen your relationship with God.

First, let’s look at what being a lukewarm Christian can look like.

There are usually two main camps of folks that fall into the lukewarm trap:

1. Those who DO all the motions but are lacking in relation and intimacy with Jesus. 
2. Those who “love the Lord” but DON’T DO any next steps to actually be like Jesus.

Most of us have been one of those at some point. 

In Revelation 3:15-18, Jesus speaks to the church in Laodicea,

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold- I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

We can gather that being lukewarm in our faith is not okay with Jesus. 

This can be scary, but we must remember that an immense amount of love accompanies God’s warning. 

The Lord wants what is best for us. We must know this deep in our spirit to grow instead of being offended and stuck.

There should be no more compartmentalizing where Jesus can go with us.

We must invite God into every aspect of our lives. 

There are many things we can do to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. 

So, how can we move from a lukewarm faith to one that’s fully committed?

Here are the five pillars you need as your foundation to go deeper with Jesus.

Some of these are broken down into subtopics to provide additional clarity and practical guidance, ensuring that you have the support needed to fully apply them to your life.

1. Surrendering to Jesus

If you want to stop being a lukewarm Christian, you must first decide if you want to surrender your life to Jesus. 

I’m sure if you are reading this article, you have some sort of desire to do this but there has always seemed to be something in your way. I’d like to suggest it may be fear.

So how do we overcome the things that get in the way of our surrender like fear or pride?

First, in every problem you will ever face, invite the Holy Spirit in. 

We cannot do anything wise without His counsel. 

Ask Him to increase your faith.

Count the Cost

In Luke 14:27, Jesus talks to those who wish to be His disciples. 

He says, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” 

There’s that moment when everyone has to count the cost and realize it’s the price of picking up your cross daily. 

This means surrendering over and over.

I remember when I started to draw near to God. 

I would talk to the Lord on my way to work in the morning. 

One morning, I had an overwhelming urge to tell Jesus, “I surrender; I give it all to you.” 

The desire was there but I recall not being able to get the words out as fear invaded my thoughts.

I started to think of all the ways I was living a life that Jesus would disapprove of. 

The sad part is I wasn’t necessarily concerned about how I was disappointing Jesus, but about the thought of letting go all everything I loved to do.

Was I ready to give all that up?

I encourage you to read Matthew 19:16-22. In this passage, a rich young man goes to Jesus, asking what good deed he needs to do to have eternal life. 

Jesus tells him to keep the commandments. The young man responds that he has. Great, right? I’m sure he was relieved to know he had already done what was required.

But Jesus says, “If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow me.” 

The Bible then says the young man heard this and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 

Jesus knew that man’s heart. So he knew what he was putting before God, or rather, what he idolized. In this young man’s case, his possessions. 

Jesus knows our hearts.

This same thing happens when you want to give your life to Jesus. 

All the things you don’t want to let go of bubble up to the surface of your mind. 

Am I ready to give this all up?

Instead of letting this deter you, use it to count the cost.

Are these things worth the separation from God?

This is where you decide to bear your cross or walk away sorrowfully. 

I want to be clear, Jesus doesn’t expect you to wake up the next morning and no longer do any of the things that separate you from Him.

He wants to meet you where you are and HELP you become more like Him.

But you must be willing to let Him do this work in you.

If you don’t fully surrender, you will always be a lukewarm Christian and miss out on the fullness of God in your life and the promise of victory He has for us.

If you are a busy mom feeling like you can’t move out of your lukewarm faith because of you barely have time to breath, I highly encourage you to check out my blog post, Seek God as a Busy Mom With These 7 Principles.

2. Seek Jesus

Continually seeking God is vital to grow in your faith, and this will always apply no matter where you are on your faith journey. 

“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

Making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, 

If you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, 

Then, you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.“

Psalm 2:1-5

Jesus is the treasure of all treasures. 

If you are seeking anything other than Him, stop. 

We don’t realize that He is the living water we thirst for.

We should seek Him diligently and intentionally. 

Read the Scriptures

We must read our Bibles! 

The Bible is life-giving as it is alive, active, and God-breathed. 

What if someone you loved dearly passed away, and they left a trunk full of letters just for you?

Would you throw them away or simply ignore them? 

No! You would probably cry and begin to pour over them carefully. 

Their words would be precious to you. 

This isn’t the greatest analogy, as God is alive, but the Creator of heaven and earth speaks to you through the Bible. 

Will you hear Him out?

Pray

Prayer is powerful, and it is imperative in our walk with Christ. 

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1Thessalonians 5:16-18

Prayer is God’s will for us, and prayer is how we develop our heart posture toward “thy will be done.” 

Reading the Bible is our intake of the daily bread we receive from the Lord. 

When we pray, it is our outpouring of thanksgiving, worship, and intercession for others. 

We also pray for the things we hope for in our lives, asking God, through whom all things are possible, to intervene on our behalf.

We can even pray for the Lord to increase our faith!

I love the story in Mark chapter nine, where a father asks Jesus to cast out an unclean spirit from his son. 

The boy’s father tells Him His disciples weren’t able to do it and then says, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 

Jesus responds, “If you can?! All things are possible for one who believes.”

Immediately, the child’s father cried, “I believe; help my unbelief.” 

I have prayed that God would increase my faith and help my unbelief countless times. 

I know that it is prayer that sustains me and keeps me.

Prayer isn’t about spitting out requests to God. 

It’s also about being still and listening. 

Leave room to hear from God. 

Fast

The story in Mark, chapter nine, about the boy’s father, who asked Jesus to help his unbelief, leads us right into another crucial way to seek the Lord: fasting.

The disciples asked Jesus why they could not cast the spirit out.

Jesus told them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” 

Fasting is a sacred one-on-one with God where you sacrifice food and intentionally seek the Lord. 

You signal to Him that this time with Him is important to you, eliminating all distractions and relying on Him instead of food. 

Man cannot live on bread alone. 

The discipline your body endures during a fast to solely rely on Jesus to get you through with prayer and the Word of God is beautiful and powerful. 

Fasting is to be done in secret. It is between you and God.

Do not complain during this time. LEAN INTO GOD.

Fasting aims to get intimate and personal with Jesus, be sensitive to the Spirit, and pray for a breakthrough in a particular area.

3. Sanctification

One of the most significant indicators that a Christian is stuck in the lukewarm phase of their faith journey is they continue in their old ways. 

When we surrender to Jesus, begin to fellowship with Him, and seek Him, we should be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and His convictions. 

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24 

So, how exactly do we put on this new self? 

When I began to feel convicted about certain things I was doing, wearing, or consuming, I had to eliminate them. 

I even wondered if I was overthinking some things, but I knew it was for good reason that my heavenly Father wanted them out of my life. 

I didn’t and sometimes still don’t always understand, but I trust Him.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. -Romans 12:2

Renew your mind

We need to lean on the Holy Spirit to renew our minds and look at life through the lens of God and not our own lens. We will easily fall back into our old ways or be influenced by the way of the world if we do not rely on the Spirit of God.

We can actively renew our minds by pouring over scripture, praying for guidance, and physically getting yourself out of situations that would suck you into your old lifestyle.

We must escape our former lifestyle by no longer going to the places we once hung out and by mindfully choosing what we watch and listen to. 

Many of the things I would watch and listen to were feeding my mind negative thoughts, even evil ones. 

I thirsted for the things that were not pleasing to God.

We can think of it as a loss, but turning away from the world and to Jesus is the ultimate gain. 

Just keep going, and you will see. 

Community

The company you keep will make or break your sanctification process. 

Get involved in your local BIBLE BASED CHURCH. 

Join a small group and make God-fearing friends. Be intentional about this. 

There is no way we can do this on our own. 

When I first began to follow Jesus, it seemed like no one understood what I was going through. 

I felt alone. 

Then, one day, I was scrolling Instagram, and I saw my cousin, whom I hadn’t spoken to in years, posting about Jesus. 

I had to reach out to her. Was it possible she was going through the same things as I was?

Sure enough, she was on her path to living for Jesus, and we leaned on each other so much during this time. 

Now, we are both part of local churches and have made other Christian friends.

Another crucial component of Christian community is discipleship. 

We need those who have gone before us to disciple us, and we need to be disciples those who are coming behind us. 

Jesus created this system. We reach forward and backward as we collectively move closer to Jesus. This is the church.

Confession

We break free from darkness by bringing it to the light

Confessing our sins to God and repenting are the actions that will help us grow in our sanctification process.

Once we have these Christian friends, we should confess our sins to them. 

We should hold each other accountable and pray for one another. 

None of this should ever be done condemningly, but the way Jesus would do it — in love.

No one is perfect. We are all sinners. 

Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. -James 5:16

The goal here is for healing and to break the strongholds.

We need each other to follow Christ. This is how the Lord planned it. 

That we would lean on each other and God.

4. Serve

When we serve as Christians, we see where there is a need and meet it without expecting anything in return.

Whether it’s helping someone when no one is looking or serving in ministry.

We can learn directly from Jesus, who showed us how to serve well. 

Matthew 20:28 says, “Even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Works and deeds should overflow from your journey with the Holy Spirit, or you may find yourself simply doing the motions or even doing them for the wrong motives.

I did not grow up in church, so when I began serving, volunteering, and finding a mentor, these were all Spirit-led decisions. 

Leaning into Jesus showed me I should serve and help. I just wanted to do whatever pleased Jesus. 

It was uncomfortable at first, but obedience is the name of the game.

I love working with the two-year-old’s at my church when to be honest, I struggled with this at first.

The problem is many lukewarm Christians have grown up in church culture and do all of these things as secondhand nature, never stopping to question how their relationship with the Lord is.

The Lord says: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” Isaiah 29:13  

On the other hand, many people go to church on Sundays but never take the next step. 

Take it! Immerse yourself in what your church is doing while developing an intimate relationship with Jesus.

Practically,  you will have to try things out. 

Find where there is a need and see if it is something you can help in. 

If you struggle at first, your church should be more than willing to help you find where you would serve best. Just be open. 

Heart posture is key when serving.

The Bible tells us to “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.” Ephesians 6:7–8

5. Spread the Gospel

Some Christians do all the above and have a beautiful relationship with the Lord, but they get stuck when it comes time to tell others about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We forget this wasn’t a command for preachers or those “extra holy.”

As followers of Jesus, we are all commanded to share the good news of salvation through Christ with the lost.

Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

I love the last sentence, which assures us that Jesus is always with us. 

As mentioned earlier, walking in the Spirit is a must when we go out in the world, especially to share the gospel with others. 

It is the Holy Spirit who makes us bold.

A major reason I know we all shy away from being bold in our faith is the fear of man.

We care so much about what others think. 

And the sad part is being a lukewarm Christian is far more accepted than being on fire for Jesus. Why is this?

These days, the standard is so low for being a Christian that once you start to live out your faith, others may say, “Why do you have to be so extra?” 

When, in fact, this isn’t extra at all. It is actually what we are called to as Christians.

The one and only true gospel is offensive, and some people have a distorted view of this gospel. They preach a gospel that is pleasing to man.

Another issue many people face when spreading the good news is their self-condemnation. 

“Who am I to preach the gospel?”

They feel they have lived a life in complete opposition to God. 

“I’m too dirty to tell others about this. I need to get to a certain level before that.”

I pray that you forgive yourself and are free from shame in the name of Jesus. 

This is the whole point of our Lord’s death. 

He died and has forgiven us our sins, making us holy and blameless before Him. 

Who are we not to forgive ourselves?

Perhaps you have forgiven yourself but don’t feel qualified. 

Surely, more people know the Bible better than you. They should be doing this.

First of all, keep digging into that Bible, but your story and your voice matter.  

It is God who qualifies us anyway. Did he not make your mouth as it says in Exodus?

When Moses didn’t feel qualified to get the Israelites out of Egypt, the LORD said, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now, therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

We do not have to rely on our intelligence. We don’t need a ton of degrees. 

The Lord knows who He is calling when He calls them. 

In my blog, 3 Must-Read Faith Books for Spiritual Growth, I review a book called How to Tell the Truth by Preston Perry. In this book Perry discusses the old saying, “Preach the gospel at all time and when necessary, use words.”

I love how Preston points out that if we love and do kind deeds without telling others the Gospel, we are merely philanthropists. 

People need to hear the gospel. It is a matter of their salvation.

The most important part about spreading the gospel is doing it in love. If you follow all the above practices, this should flow naturally from you because you truly sit at Jesus’ feet.

So keep doing all these things, and your faith and devotion to the Lord will increase as you draw near.

I pray these things will no longer be seen as being on fire for Jesus but as simply being a Christian.

“Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” Matthew 7:24

The Bible calls us to surrender to the Lord Jesus, to seek Him, and we will find Him, to be set apart, to serve as He came to serve, and to make disciples.