Revelation 2:3-4 English Standard Version (ESV)

³ I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

How well we are doing is not a direct reflection of our love.

These are the last words from yesterday and they deserve some follow up. Jesus’ message to the church at Ephesus begins with praise about how well they are doing in patience, forbearance and faithfulness. Then the other shoe drops, “I have this against you.”

What was this first love that they began with and abandoned on the way? Can we look into our own lives and see perhaps a glimpse of the same thing? Have we gotten so duty minded we have neglected our relation with our Lord? Have been so satisfied with the results of our work that we failed to seek satisfaction with being in His presence? Have we allowed the joy of fellowship to drown out His loving words to us in our personal relationship?

Do we study His word to teach others and neglect our own personal growth? Do we seek answers rather than Him who is the answer? Do we seek to discover who we are without discovering who He is in us?

Everything we have is a gift from God. Are we children that give a hug and a thank you and then run off to play with our gift without including Him in those moments? We would not have those gifts without Him and they will be most effective if we use them with Him.

It is easy to get busy. It is even easier to get concerned. He made us what we are to share in our lives, not to be ignored while we live life.

2 Corinthians 1:12 English Standard Version (ESV) For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicityand godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you.

These past few devotions have been with simplicity, so much so that the reader may excuse themselves from learning anything new. The point of this recent exercise was to remind us of our duty to the newest of disciples. When we began our journey with Christ we knew nothing, but we did not know that. Now our initiates are in that same position and we hope that these past posting will remind us all of that precarious position of thinking we know something when we do not.

1 Corinthians 8:2 English Standard Version (ESV) If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

Yesterday we spoke about the issues of thought control and how the world fills our heads with false imaginations. They see things differently than how God see things. In order to see things as God sees them, we must put down every imagination even if it seems harmless.

This is why the past few days have been put as simply and honestly as possible so as not to stir up anything but the basic truths required to keep moving closer to God in relationship and trust. We may very well be there at this moment of our lives. We are human and as such subject to the inevitable degrading of memory and emotions.

Keeping our love for God and His word is not a simple thing for a busy mind. Distractions and urgencies will happen and draw us slowly away from those first moments of love and gratitude we held when we first believed.

Revelation 2:3-4 English Standard Version (ESV)

³ I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. ⁴ But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

How well we are doing is not a direct reflection of our love.