Are You a Thermometer or a Thermostat?
	Do you have any thermometers at your house? What does a thermometer do? (It registers the temperature of its environment.) If the environment becomes warmer, the thermometer registers a higher temperature. If conditions become cooler, it registers a lower temperature. The thermometer adjusts (the indicator moves up or down) according to the temperature of the environment.
	Now, what does a thermostat do? (It responds to changes in the temperature of the environment by turning on the a/c or heat.) A thermostat doesn’t just tell you what the temperature is – it does something to bring an unacceptably low or high temperature back to an acceptable level.
	Think about your life as a Christian. As you serve the Lord, are you being a thermometer, or a thermostat? Do you adjust to whatever the environment around you happens to be? Or do you act in ways that change the environment to something that is more acceptable to God? Paul wrote in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
	I urge you not to be a mere thermometer. Don’t merely adjust to the world around you so that you are like it is. God didn’t call us to imitate the world, but to confront the world with the truth of His word! Jesus told His disciples, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yea, because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). I suppose nobody enjoys being hated, but Jesus went on in the next sentence to remind us that a servant is not greater than his master. We have no right to expect better treatment than Jesus received. So, be a thermostat! Be a force for change in this world – change that produces more godliness and less sin, more righteousness and less wickedness, more kindness and less cruelty.