Devotion

Devotion

Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (Revelation 2:1-5)

In the opening letter to the church of Ephesus, Christ is pictured as walking among the seven lampstands, which represent the seven churches. This should tell us that He is the leader of the church and is its Savior. As leader and Savior, He has a right to charge the church with sin. The sin Christ charged this church with, is, not the having left and forsaken the object of love, but having lost the enthusiastic level of it that at first appeared. Christ is displeased with his people, when he sees them grow negligent and cold toward him. This mention in Scripture, of Christians forsaking their first love, admonishes those who speak of it with carelessness, and try to excuse indifference and laziness in themselves and others; our Savior considers this indifference as sinful. He says: repent: become grieved and ashamed for your sinful declining, and humbly confess it in the sight of God.

Have you ever fallen in love? When you first fall in love, he/she is all you think about. He/she is your mind all day long. They are the first person you talk to in the morning…you fall asleep on the phone with them at night…you wake up in the middle of the night with the phone right next to you, and you can hear them still breathing on the phone. When you are with him/her in a car, you both sit so close together that people think there is a person with two heads driving the car. You have fallen in love! But then as time passes, you find yourself back over in the passenger seat, looking at him and asking him, “how come we don’t sit together anymore.” He turns in looks at you and says: “I am still in the driver’s seat you are the one that moved!” This is the same thing that I believe Christ says to us! He is not the one that changed, we left…not lost, Him!

Like this church, some of us have also lost our enthusiastic intensity that we had when we first came to know Christ. We are now in a place of indifference. We have now become sluggish! What should we do? Again, we must repent? Just being on the usher board or the deacon’s board is serving, not devotion to Christ. Working in the church or helping the pastor is not devotion to Christ. We must make an effort to recover our first passion, compassion, and sincerity and must pray as earnestly, and watch as diligently, as when we first set out in the ways of God. When these things return…we will get back to our devotion