Revelation 2:4-5

Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place–unless you repent. 

Revelation 2:4-5

Jesus’ letter to the Ephesian church is filled with acknowledgements of their busyness for God, their discernment and patience, their perseverance and labor for Him without quit! Then the above verses appear and we learn a lesson quickly: God sees all we do but accepts only that we do when our hearts of love for Him are motivating or driving our outward behavior. This busy church would have captured the imagination of many churchgoers as being a “happening place,” but the Lord saw through it all. 

He called them to remember how they used to go about doing things and then take a look at how they were doing them now. He saw a change of heart, a regimented hard labor but the love for God no longer propelled them forward.  As a result, nothing was acceptable to Him and so He calls them to remember, to repent, and then turn again to their first love. 

That’s great counsel for all of us. It is so easy to settle in and lose the vision for all we do. God help us never lose that love for Him as we set about to express that love in service.

Serving Him with a full heart,

Pastor Jack Abeelen