The Church in Ephesus

In the book of Revelation, Jesus writes letters to seven churches.  I wanted to take a few blogs and talk about those churches.  One that hits close to home to me is the church in Ephesus.

All of the verses are taken from Revelation 2

2 'I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false;

3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary.

In these verses, we see a church that has worked.  It has sacrificed for the name of Christ.  The church in Ephesus took a stand for the truth.  In all of this, they dealt with trials and stood against evil.  But then Jesus goes on to say this:

4 'But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

5 'Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place--unless you repent.

However, in persevering and standing for truth, the most important thing of all had escaped them.  They lost their "first" love for God. 

In this is a warning for long standing believers.  There are so many ways we can lose our "first love".  Sometimes our work for God can become so tedious that we find no joy in it.  Not only that, when you are doing that work within churches, they typically need you so bad that you would have to be utterly intentional if you really wanted to make a change.  The end result is that our relationship with God suffers and love for Him can diminish if we look at our weariness in the wrong way.  Don't think Ephesus didn't love God.  They did.  Losing your first love means that other things went above loving Him.  It's never been God's intention for our love to fade or for it to be low priority.

In our country's past there was a term we used for free but forced labor.  It was called slavery.  God has no intention of enslaving anyone.  When people feel trapped in ministry and serving with little to no love for God, they can feel like slaves.  They have lost their first love. 

God wants you to love Him and with that comes serving that brings you joy.  Any true relationship will produce fruit and God longs for that from us.  I love my wife Michelle dearly.  There are things I do differently because she's in my life.  There are things I've learned how to fix so that she would have what she needs.  There are things about myself I changed as a result of my relationship with my wife.  My life characteristics reflect the relationship with her that I have.  I didn't do or change all those things because I had to.  I made those changes because I love her more than any other person.

God wants that from you.  If you have been worn down, maybe it's time for a change.  If not a change, maybe some quality time with God.  Take a hike.  Get alone.  Go to a conference.  Praise Him. Read the Word. Do whatever it takes to keep God as your first love.  He is worth it and wants you to love Him first.