From the Home Place

March 24, 2026

Greetings my friend. Hopefully you were able to rest well last night and are ready for another busy day. Weather wise it looks like a nice day with a predicted high of 75 degrees. As of right now the outside temperature is 29 degrees, as such the sun has some serious work to do. I know that this daily weather report has humored some of you, yet it too has purpose.

Please allow me to ask each of us a question: “If your spiritual life was measured by degrees, like on a thermometer, let’s say that ranges from 0-100 degrees, what would your spiritual temperature be right now?” Using today’s physical temperature as a guide, let’s pretend that right now you are at 29 degrees spiritually, hoping to reach to 75 degrees sometime in the future.

Work with me now. If 32 degrees is the point where a person is either freezing or thawing; we will call 32 degrees where an unbeliever (below 32=freezing) determines to follow Jesus Christ now (thawing). As such, if you are anywhere below 32 degrees spiritually, you need to warm to 32 degrees through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. As Jesus stated of Himself, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

If you placed yourself anywhere below 32 degrees spiritually, you may feel “frozen” spiritually. But by God’s amazing grace (Ephesians 2:8-9) you can immediately set your spiritual thermometer at 32 degrees by admitting that you are a sinner who needs a Savior. The moment you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you jump to thawing at 32 degrees!

Now our goal is not to leave you at 32. Your Heavenly Father is calling you to reach a spiritual temperature of 100 degrees – totally committed to walking with Him through each day for the rest of your life. Hit pause: Not every day will be a 100-degree day even for the most committed follower of Jesus, yet that should always be your heart’s desire. (However, 100 degrees will forever be yours the moment you enter into heaven!)

So, for today, if you said you are starting anywhere between 32 and 100, you need to warm things up significantly. Just like today will need a good deal of sunshine to warm the air from its present 29 degrees to reach 75 degrees, spiritually you need a significant amount of Son-shine as well. And as warming the atmosphere will take the better part of this day, your spiritual life will take some time to crawl up the spiritual thermometer as well.

No, you probably won’t climb several degrees just today, though that could be possible. Yet in reality you will need to invest some time in Bible reading, prayer and application; a process called discipleship. For each of us we are in the process of increasing our spiritual temperature. To do so, we must be in a constant process of growing “in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It seems to me that to allow Jesus to be Lord of my life, I have to give all that I know about me to all that I know about Jesus, for the rest of my earthly journey. That knowledge should be constantly changing. You know, like the temperature on a thermometer.

The great thing about our spiritual thermometer is that once we reach a certain temperature, it does not go back below 32 degrees. If we have unconfessed sin in our life the temperature can drop a few degrees, yet confession of said sin and turning away from it actually increases our spiritual temperature. As such, if your spiritual thermometer reads 58 degrees when you went to sleep, it should be there at 58 degrees to greet you in the morning.

In reality your spiritual thermometer tends to increase slowly but constantly increasing as long as you keep your eyes fixed upon Jesus. You see, the temperature of this world is affected by swings of daylight and darkness. Yet 1 John makes it clear that if we are “walking in darkness,” at any time we have unconfessed sin in our lives, but Jesus invites us to walk in His light, thus never allowing our spiritual temperature to drop below where we started.

Reality is, each day that we walk in the light of Jesus, our spiritual thermometer warms up, getting ever closer to that perfect 100 degree day in heaven!

Warming up spiritually with you, Neal