Revelation 2:4 “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”

I have heard several sermons preached on this passage, and there doubtless could be many more. Ephesus was a church that essentially did everything right, but their heart wasn’t in it any more. Orthodoxy is good, but God wants our hearts more than anything else. We can do the right things for any of a number of reasons, but God wants us to do them because we love Him (John 14:15) These days, when whole denominations are jumping ship into demonic, hedonistic teaching, it’s easy for other churches to say, “We’re not like that,” and get self-satisfied. That’s exactly what the Pharisees did in Jesus’ day! Doctrine is important, but if it isn’t based on loving God because He first loved us, (1 John 4:19) it becomes totally empty. These Letters to the Seven Churches tell us a lot about what to look for, both good and bad, in our churches today. We need to remember that the term, church, never refers to a building in the Bible, but always to the assembled people, the ecclesia. As such, it is an organism at least as much as it is an organization, and each church will have character and personality, if you will. We need to examine the church we belong to with both honesty and love. No church is perfect, and very few are without redemptive qualities. Sometimes God will direct us to find a different church, but far more often, He wants us to be part of the solution to draw the church more into the pattern He has for it. That said, churches aren’t supposed to be identical! Churches are as different as individual believers are, just as Paul went to great length to explain in 1 Corinthians 12. However, every church should have a dedication to be obedient to Christ, based on their love for Him. If that is missing, it can hardly be called a church.

I hadn’t expected to go in this direction! However, the words flowed, and I believe I’m being obedient. The faults in this church are pretty firmly mine, because I’ve been its only pastor for the past 40 years. If love for God is lacking, then it’s because I have failed to love Him as I should. I’m grateful to say that numbers of people have commented that this seems to be a very healthy church, spiritually speaking, but that is only by the grace of God. We are continuing to grow in various ways, for which I’m very grateful. We’re about to start a regular discussion time after each Sunday morning service, for the believers to share what they got out of the message, in order to cement it in their own hearts and encourage each other. I don’t want this to devolve into “study sessions,” as though academics were the way to God, but I do want each believer to recognize when God is speaking to them and welcome His Word to apply it, all based on their love for Him. There are various things about the mechanics of this that we don’t know yet, so we’ve got to be open and flexible. At the same time, I don’t want to give up, because the process itself will grow and strengthen us.

Father, thank You for this Word, particularly at this point. Thank You for all You are doing in and around us. Help me be fully sensitive and obedient to You in every area, so that I will be useful rather than in the way, for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!