Exalting God

Love for Fellow Believers

Our love for him should naturally carry over to the people around us who share our unity with Christ.  This is exactly what Jesus said in John 13:34-35.  As he poured his love for the Father and for us out on the cross, we should likewise be expressive in our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. 

We should care about the emotional, physical and spiritual well-being of our Christian family.  Are they joyful in Christ?  Are they hungry, destitute or lonely?  Are they growing in their walk with Christ or are they stagnant?  Jesus consistently concerned himself with these matters when it came to those around him.  If we have a genuine love for him, then so too should we.

Love for the Unconverted

However, Christ demonstrated a love for more than the church.  He cast his message of grace far and wide and called us to do the same.  If we are truly the body of Christ then it seems fair to say that upon his return he expects to find a body of people who both possess and manifest a sincere love for those who have never experienced the redeeming grace of God. 

Yet, for that to happen we as the church, the body of Christ on earth, must have within our hearts a love for all of God’s creation, including those who hate and curse him, those who neglect or deny him, and those who have simply never heard of him.

Responding to Indifference

The next words of Christ in this brief letter emphasize his gracious love towards his children, reminding us that we were saved with a distinct purpose in view.  In short, we were created to love God and bring glory to him through sacrificial praise and service. 

Jesus says to us as much as he did to the Ephesians: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first” (2:5a).  With a profound economy of words Jesus articulated what our response to cold indifference should be: Remember, repent, and return.

Christ’s charge here is the same we discussed earlier.  Take a moment once again and think back to the fire you once felt towards Christ.  I recall the months following my conversion.  I couldn’t wait to read the Bible and learn all that I could about my Savior. 

There was such a sweet anticipation as I opened its pages; I wanted to know what would happen next.  There was a desire within my soul to tell others about Jesus, a desire that unknowingly seemed so natural.  I confess that over the years of my walk with Christ there have been many times were I have had to stop and intentionally remember what it was like to have such a holy fire in my bones.  We would all do well to remember.

However, remembering is not enough and Jesus makes that clear to us.  Upon remembering our first love we are then to repent, confessing our sin as we cry out to God, pleading with him to create in us a clean heart and renew within us a steadfast spirit (Ps 51:10-12). 

With a freshly cleaned heart and renewed zeal for Christ we are then to lay aside the matters which distracted us from him and return to that newly redeemed person who was on fire for Christ.  The exciting thing here is that we are not asked to forsake the lessons we learn in the valleys.  Rather, Jesus is charging us to take with us what we learn in the trials and sin so that we will be all the more prepared the next time distraction and cold indifference attack our souls.

There is also a flatly worded warning in this letter.  Jesus declares: “If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (2:5b).  I pray that this word of warning stops you cold in your thoughts, for it is a statement designed to do so.  He was not referring to his second coming here; instead he was promising to level judgment upon the Ephesian church if they did not repent of their sin and return to what they were founded and called to be.[i] 

So with deafening clarity the Ephesian body of believers was told that their church itself might be dissolved if they failed to make Christ their focus and do what he had called them to do.  They desperately needed to remember their first love. 

Manifesting Love

If we are honest with ourselves, we too, like our Ephesian brethren, need to remember, repent, and return.  We all face the same temptations they faced.  We all struggle with the same human nature.  And as believers in Christ we have been adopted into the family of God and made fellow heirs with Christ the same way they were (Rom 8:12-17).  Therefore, we must take to heart Christ’s charge to them and search intently to see if we too are guilty of forgetting our first love.

So what do we look for in this inward search?  While physical markers can be misleading, our inward love for Christ was from the very beginning intended to manifest itself outwardly.  The Ephesians were praised for their hard labor for Christ, but it was apparently done out of a sense of duty rather than worship. 

Just as God rejected Cain’s offering but accepted Abel’s (Gen 4:1-7), God either rejects or accepts our offerings because he knows the inner motivation of our hearts as we serve him in this world.  With that in mind, let each of us search our hearts for the purpose behind our service and worship.            

Meeting physical needs

Jesus clearly calls us to meet the physical needs of people (Matt 25:31-46).  Yet, he also makes it clear that by ministering to the broken we are glorifying him: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40).  We need to ask ourselves if we have Christ’s renown in view while we serve or our own.

Bearing with one another

Another mark of love is found in our desire to bear with one another’s burdens.  Paul teaches us that by doing so we “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2).  James helps us to see that this “royal law” as he dubs it is defined by love (Jas 2:8).  So by choosing to bear with our brothers through trials and failures and immaturity we are demonstrating the love of Christ in our lives and loving others as much as we love ourselves. 

Obeying God’s word

If the fire for our first love is still burning bright then obedience to his word should still be something which characterizes us.  John captures this thought best: “And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it” (2 John 6).  Of course, this is not the mere following of the law, it is the joyful desire to obey God because we love him (John 14:15).

Sharing the good news

What about evangelism?  As we search out the crevices of our soul do we find an inner desire to tell other people about our savior?  If we genuinely have an abiding love for Christ in our hearts and believe that he is the only means of eternal life in the presence of God then the only rational response we can make is to find joy in telling others about him (Rom 1:16-17; John 14:6). 

Enjoying God

Surely there are other benchmarks by which we can gage our affection for God, but honestly the most important one involves our level of joy in him.  So we should ask ourselves: Do I enjoy my relationship with him?  Is my soul happy because I know that whatever happens in life God is in control and he has my best interests in mind (Rom 8:28)? 

Is there contentment in my soul regardless of circumstance because I know that God is holding me in his hands and is constantly at work with the goal of conforming me into the image of his son?  Do I enjoy God?

Jesus is coming back.  He promised to never leave us; he promised to prepare a place for us.  So we can be certain that the day is coming, and I pray that it will be soon.  However, in the mean time, we as the church still have time to correct our short-comings and become the people God designed us to be.  We still have time to remember our first love, repent of our sin, and return to the fiery people we were when he initially redeemed us. 

Let each recall the promise of Christ as we examine our own lives: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (2:7).