Subject: thou hast left thy first love |
Bible Note: Goodmorning New Creature: The seven churches of Asia which are found in Rev. 2-3 represent local churches of God which existed in Asia at about 96 A.D.. Interestingly, the Spirit of God through John points out the condition of each. However, when we look closely at each church we find that each represents a time in history which at the time of the writing of Rev. was future except for the first church at Ephesus. Ephesus represents the apostolic age. The Lord says: a) "I know thy works, and thy labour and thy patience" V.2 Labor in this verse is given in the sense that they labored to the point of exhaustion. b) "thou canst bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not and hast found them liars. This church was doctrinally correct and stood guard against false teachers and exposed such as false. In v. 3 the Lord summerizes the intensity of their labor, their doctrine and faithfulness to that doctrine. Nevertheless, even though the appeared to be correct, the Lord points out this major problem in V.4 "Thou has left thy first love" An example of this can be found in the experience of Mary and Martha in Luke 10V38. Martha was a hard worker and was busy trying to make things right for the Lord. She was frustrated with her sister's seeming lack of exercise. Yet we find that the Lord points out "that Mary has choosen the better part". What was Mary doing? Sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus and hearing his word. Martha was distracted by all of the work she thought necessary and forgot that it was important to be close to Christ and to hear his word. In Ephesus, we have those who labored intensely supposedly for God. However, it would seem that their motivation was out of duty rather than out of love. When we first come to know Christ as our Saviour, we are in our first love. Our desire is to be pleasing to him because of his love to us and ours to him. However, as time goes by there is a distinct danger of doing things out of a sense of duty rather than love. We may pride ourselves in doctinal correctness, in our ability to see error in others and in our stand for the truth, but if we are motivated by anything other than love for Christ, we labor in vain. God wants our hearts more than anything else. In V. 5 they are told to repent. Or the Lord would removed the lampstand from their presence. I believe the lampstand is the Lord's presence in their midst. At a certain point he will withdraw and leave them alone to their own organized religion. You mention "People doing what they do without the fire" This is a good way of putting it. I believe the fire speaks of our desire to please the Lord Jesus because we love him and if we are willing he will by his Spirit raise us to higher heights in himself. "You have left your first love" is a challenging searching question which we can apply to ourselves. Why do we do what we do for the Lord? In Christ Robert |