Hold My Love

Chapter 46: Lukewarm

And another update! Also, does anyone know this song?

I was grateful that Lace was driving us to Church today because I woke up late-again-and I need to pull my hair up in a bun.

"Ladies, your late".

Lace cuts the engine and we step outside to greet Giovanni who had been waiting for us in his car. He usually only comes along with Lucia and Beatrice but today he even had Valentina with him.

Lace shakes her head, "Because your girlfriend kept hitting snooze".

Sienna rubs Valentina's belly as we walk into the Church, "These babies need to hurry up, I'm ready to be an auntie already".

We are 10 minutes late so we missed the greetings and to my disappointment, a little of the worship. I grew up going to my grandmothers Baptist Church where people would faint left to right and call out "Amen" and "hallelujah" during the sermon. I loved grandma's Church but it was far from where Gio and I were planning on building our home and honestly the judgmental Church lady's made me loathe going there.

So I found a Pentecostal Church close to where we were building our home and we have been attending it for a few months now. It was very diverse with people from Africa, Asia and Europe and it was an even mixture of older people and young people with little kids and even college kids.

After the kids are dismissed to Sunday School, the Cuban Pastor makes his way to the podium, "Please take your seats".

He flips through his Bible then stops, "Yesterday While I was praying for God to give me a sermon to preach he reminded me of my college years".

"As most of you know, I was raised Christian. I got saved when I was and baptised when I was around nine years old. But as the years went by I transformed from being a 9 year old who had a passion to becoming a Prophet to a 14 year old who wanted nothing to do with God. I saw Christianity as my parent's religion not mine. I hated going to Church, I only went to Youth Group because if I didn't I wouldn't be allowed to play sports and I stopped praying and reading the Bible. I was really unhappy all throughout my 14th year on this Earth. It wasn't because my grades were failing, my friends betrayed me or I was doing bad in soccer, I was just truly unhappy inside. I began to remember how extremely happy I was when my relationship with God was strong".

"So when I turned 15 I slowly began making my way towards God again. I would wake up on school mornings at 5:30am to pray and read the Bible. But after a month and a half of that, I fell off. You see I saw praying and reading the Bible as a chore, something I had to do, not something I willingly did. Oftentimes my mind would wonder when I prayed and I would start thinking about other things and forget I was even praying to begin with. Whenever I would pray I would feel like I was just talking to the air. I felt like God couldn't hear me and it made me feel stupid when I prayed. You see I was missing the connection with God that your supposed to feel when praying".

He stops and adjusts his glasses, "I went back to living like I belonged to this world. I would drink at high school parties, smoke pot occasionally, hook up with girls and I would watch filth on the internet. Every Time before I would sin, I would feel bad about it-everyone knows that 'I want to do it but I shouldn't be doing this' feeling. My friends, that is the Holy Spirit telling you that it's unGodly".

The Church erupts in Amen's and Hallelujah's.

"My life turned into a cycle of sinning, then feeling guilty and asking for forgiveness and then sinning again. When you read Genesis you can pick out the lie that the devil told Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. He convinced them that they were missing out on something amazing. Lukewarm Christians feel as though God is holding back some superior pleasure from them. You feel as though their is advantage to sin but also advantage to the Christian life. I had one foot in the Kingdom of God and another in this world. Sinning was pleasurable and being a Christian meant that I wasn't going to hell. But that's where I was wrong, because Jesus said in Revelations 3:15-16, '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 will spit you out of my mouth'".

The church once again erupts in Amen's.

""Finally, at 17 years old I fully went back to Christ. I was tired of feeling empty inside. I was tired of going through the motions of life without feeling the presence of God. I was done being a lukewarm christian so I rededicated my life to God again and I haven't regretted a moment of it.

He takes a swing of his water bottle, "You come here to Church nodding your head yelling out ;'hallelujah' and everyone looks at you and thinks you are a devout Christian. But when you go home the cursing begins, you continue to smoke pot, you have sex outside of marriage, you watch pornography, you live like the world and no one can tell who your father is. Weather it is God the father or Satan, the father of lies".

"No one can tell the difference, but know this, the same God who made you is the same God who knows the thoughts inside of you head. You can fool man but you cannot fool God and he will not be mocked. Your sins will find you out. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is a jealous God'. My friends he will not share you with Satan. You either give God 100% or you give him nothing at all. You cannot be a part-time Christian. So you must decide today, whom will you serve? God or the devil?"

He scans the Church, "Brothers and sisters, whatever choice you make do it so that you won't have any regrets on judgment day. Don't wait till judgment day to realize what you could have done different in life-to realize you should have been a full time Christian. I pray that none of you will hear the words, 'depart from me, I don't know you'...Let us bow our heads and say grace".

PLEASE READ

A/N: Hey loves! As some of you know I took down a part of chapter 31 (you guys know what part). Ever since posting it my spirit has been unsettled and after doing some reflection and praying I knew I had to take it down. I've always wanted this book to not only be about romance but as well as Christ. It didn't feel right to mix God and sexual scenes (they didn't have sex but it got very sexual). Don't get me wrong-sex is not a bad thing, God created it for us to enjoy and produce children. But considering Sophia and Giovanni were not married I knew it had to go.

I have read incredible wattpad books without sexual scenes so I know you can have a beautiful love story without sex scenes. Nothing is going to change, the storyline will still be the same!

As for sex scenes when they do get married, I'm not sure whether it would be still be displeasing to God if I wrote those. LoL IDK if this is gonna sound dumb but is it considered pornography? Please let me know in the comments what you guys think about it!

I hope the sermon spoke to someone!<3

You are loved.