“But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
Revelation 2:4

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The church in Ephesus was a busy church. It was a church that had a great zeal for God’s work. It was a church known for its deeds, its discernment, and its dedication to the work of God. It was a church with a full calendar of activities and that toiled to the point of exhaustion. The church had persevered when things got tough, that carefully tested its teachers and leaders lest false brethren be given opportunity to infiltrate their ranks, and that worked without growing weary.

The church in Ephesus seemed to be doing all the right things. It seemed to be a model church. That is why after reading about their commendable deeds in Revelation 2:2-3, verse 4 comes as something of a surprise. “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

According to Revelation 2:4, our motivation for service matters to God. He is concerned with the question of why we are doing what we do.

Those who have ever been involved in service know that it is easy to get lost in labor. It is easy to lose sight of the purpose for our labor. And it is easy to get so involved in labor that we forget to spend time with the God for whom we labor.

It is not hard to bump time with God off of our agendas, after all, sometimes we are just too busy doing the work to stop and pray or to spend time alone with God. The net result of this is that we labor without love. Our labor becomes mechanical. Our labor becomes an end in itself. Our labor becomes what satisfies us. We have great programs but no passion for God. We have a litany of activities but no adoration for God. We have labor without love.

It is easy to let our activities, programs, and labors distract us from knowing and enjoying God. Luke 10:38-42 records the visit of Jesus to the home of Martha and Mary. Luke records that “Martha was distracted with all her preparations” or “with much service.” Martha certainly felt that she was doing the right thing and could not understand her sister’s inactivity.

Jesus took the opportunity to remind Martha that there are some things more important than activity and labor. The church today, it seems, would rather have a membership of Marthas than Marys. After all, Marthas plan, initiate, participate, and congregate.

Our western culture is inclined to doing. We measure people by what they do rather than by what they are becoming. We measure people by their outward activity rather than by their inward disciplines. We are attracted to achievers whose contributions to the work of ministry are numerous and visible. We are in the business of blessing busyness. And in and through it all, we lose sight of God.

God’s concern for the church in Ephesus was that they had left their first love. Warren Wiersbe defines “first love” as “the devotion to Christ that so often characterizes the new believer: fervent, personal, uninhibited, excited, and openly displayed.” Wiersbe also refers to it as “honeymoon love” and points out that when a husband and wife lose the excitement of their honeymoon days, they begin to take each other for granted and their life becomes routine.

When believers leave their first love, their service becomes mechanical, routine, and often unfulfilling. We do things because they are supposed to be done. We labor without joy. Our hands do but our heart does not feel. We serve without smiling, without joy, and very matter-of-factly.

Notice however, that God wrote that the church in Ephesus had “left” their first love. In other words, they could go back and recover what they had left behind. Notice also that God outlined in verse 5 how they could recover what they had left behind.

First, God said, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen.” You must go back and remember what it was like at the beginning and long for that kind of love and relationship with God once again.

Second, God said, “and repent.” In other words, repent of the attitudes and actions that caused you to leave your first love.

Third, God said, “and do the deeds you did at first.” Very simply stated, you must go back to where you left your first love and cultivate those disciplines and attitudes that helped you to enjoy God as you labored and to labor because you loved God.

May we examine ourselves to be certain that we labor because we love God. May we not lose sight of God in our labor.

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 1:9

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The office floor was littered with them. I had no idea what they were until I knelt to pick them up. And then I knew. The tiny rubber objects were mute evidence that a vandal had been in the room.

“Perhaps we should call the police and report the crime and have the tiny things dusted for finger prints,” I thought. “No, perhaps not!” I looked again at the cylindrical objects in my hand and shook my head. “Who would do such a thing?,” I muttered. “It just doesn’t make sense!”

Upon further investigation I found additional evidence. There before me were several slender yet-to-be-sharpened Number 2 pencils — without erasers! Someone had entered our office, decapitated our pencils, and littered our floor with the tiny erasers!

Now, I know that this is not the crime of the century nor is it likely to make the evening news. But it does bother me because pencils and erasers and I go way back. I remember the days when I learned to use one of those jumbo pencils with the jumbo erasers on the end. I made jumbo letters on my jumbo Big Chief Tablet. And when I made mistakes, I made jumbo mistakes that could only be corrected with a jumbo eraser. As I got older the pencils got slimmer and the erasers got smaller, but somehow I always managed to make jumbo mistakes. No problem. I always had an eraser handy that was capable of erasing my erratum.

Over the years I have developed an appreciation for the role of the humble eraser in our society. The business and academic worlds could not function as effectively without erasers. Students would have a difficult time doing homework and taking Algebra without the help of erasers. And lest we think the eraser is obsolete, it is one of the few things in our society that has kept pace with our burgeoning technology. When I bought my first typewriter it came complete with a package of lift-off correction tape. And then in later years my clumsy typing was aided by White-Out Correction Fluid. And my personal computer not only has a delete key, it also allows me to use a spell checker that will correct my mistakes.

Yes, erasers have played an important role in my life over the years. They have served to remind me that I am a human being with the potential to make mistakes. They have helped me to right countless wrongs. They have given me the opportunity to begin again. They have occupied a place on the ends of my pencils, not to criticize but to serve.

Erasers also play an important role in my spiritual life. I am thankful that God made provision for the stain of sin to be erased from my life (Hebrews 9:22). I am thankful that God has made provision for me to begin again when my life becomes marked with the wrong things (Psalm 130:1-4). I am thankful that the Christian life comes equipped with an eraser that can handle even my jumbo sins (I John 1:9). So if you know who the pencil vandal is, tell him or her to stop decapitating our pencils. I make too many mistakes to live life without erasers!

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
1 Peter 2:9-10

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In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter uses a series of terms to describe what believers in Christ become. They become (in the corporate sense) a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and a people for God’s own possession.

Each of these terms is taken from an Old Testament passage: A chosen race (Isaiah 43:20), a royal priesthood (Exodus 19:6), a holy nation (Exodus 19:6), and a people for God’s own possession (Exodus 19:5).

But notice that Peter introduces the purpose for these marvelous changes with the word “that.” God has done this marvelous work in order that believers proclaim the excellencies (or praises) of God. The word “proclaim” means to announce, publicize, or tell abroad. Peter then lists three reasons why believers are to announce the excellencies of God.

First, believers are to announce the excellencies of God because it is God who has called them “out of darkness into His marvelous light.” The word “darkness” refers to the believer’s condition before coming to Christ. People who are apart from God live in darkness and are under the control of the prince of darkness (see Ephesians 2:1-3 and 1 John 5:19). When a person enters into a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ, he is transferred from darkness to light (see Acts 26:18). Psalm 107:2 says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary.”

Second, believers are to announce the excellencies of God because God has changed their status. Prior to coming to Christ, they were “not a people.” Apart from Christ men are “like sheep without a shepherd” (see Matthew 9:36). When an individual comes to Christ however, his status is changed from not belonging to belonging to the family of God.

Third, believers are to announce the excellencies of God because they have personally experienced His mercy. Prior to coming to Christ they “had not received mercy”, but on the day that they responded in faith to the claims of the gospel, they “received mercy”. The term “received mercy” refers specifically to the time of an individual’s conversion, to the moment when that individual placed his/her faith in Christ and was transferred from darkness to light and became a part of the family of God.

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
Hebrews 12:1

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I remember laughing the first time I heard the expression, “That’s as useless as a cigarette machine in a cancer ward.”

 

Hospital visits through the years however, have taught me that cigarette machines are not necessarily useless in cancer wards! I find this especially true every time I visit Wilford Hall Medical Center. The entrance to this large Air Force medical facility is usually crowded with patients who have gone outside to smoke a cigarette. On any given day you can see dozens of people in their hospital garb sitting on the benches smoking cigarettes.

On a recent trip to Wilford Hall, I noticed a woman slouched in a wheelchair outside of the hospital entrance. She was wearing a mink coat and had a cigarette in each hand!

She had lost all her hair and bore the visible signs of a losing battle with disease. Her countenance was painted with an empty and forlorn expression that betrayed the beauty of her expensive mink coat.

Her eyes were fixed in a stare as she alternately brought the cigarette in each hand to her lips. She appeared to be a woman whose relationship with joy and peace had long been severed.

Upon inquiry I learned that she was a cancer patient.

I thought it ironic that this woman was unwilling to release the very thing that was robbing her of health and life. Perhaps she felt that it was too late for reforms in her habits. The cigarette in each hand stood as mute testimony to their destructive power. The mink coat only served to accentuate her terrible condition.

It’s easy to be critical of the woman in the wheelchair until we stop to consider how much we share in common with her.

There are many people just like her on the rolls of the hospital for sinners we call the church. People who bear all the signs of spiritual disease and deterioration. People who are unwilling to let go of the very things that are ruining their spiritual health and life. People who stubbornly cling to destructive habits, attitudes, and courses that grieve God and alienate them from loved ones.

People who have grown accustomed to frustration and misery. People who insist on wearing the outward signs of wealth but who are inwardly impoverished. People who possess no peace and whose expressions radiate no joy. People who are the authors of their own agony.

God has a word for such people. His divine prescription can restore spiritual health. Through the writer to the Hebrews (12:1) God tells us to “lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us.” Through the great Apostle Paul He tells us to “walk by the Spirit, and [we] will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

For the believer, there is no spiritual health or progress outside of obedience to the Word of God. We must be willing to hear and obey. We must be willing to lay aside every destructive habit and attitude. We must be willing to forsake courses that lead only to destruction and death. We must be willing to allow God’s Holy Spirit to govern our lives. We must do what the Doctor orders!

“But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship,
do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
2 Timothy 4:5

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But You
These words are addressed to Timothy, Paul’s son in the ministry. Paul and Timothy had spent much time together, traveling throughout the Mediterranean world sowing the Gospel seed. Paul affectionately referred to Timothy as his “beloved and faithful child in the Lord” in I Corinthians 4:17 and as his “true child in the faith” in I Timothy 1:2. These men had a special relationship bonded and strengthened by their many experiences together. Paul, realizing that he was about to finish his course (2 Timothy 4:7), exhorted and challenged his young disciple to be and endure and do and fulfill.

Be Sober in All Things • (Watch)
If Timothy was to successfully run the course set before him and avoid the pitfalls of disqualification (see 1 Cor. 9:27), then he would have to “be sober in all things.” To “be sober” means to be alert or vigilant. And indeed the minister of the Gospel must be alert in every regard for two reasons. First, lest he become the victim of the schemes of the devil. We find another exhortation to vigilance in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” The minister must be spiritually, morally, and ethically sober lest he be enticed to compromise his integrity. Second, the minister must be alert that he might know how to apply the Gospel salve to the wounds men sustain in their fray with sin. That is how the Gospel is made relevant to the lives of men. They must see that God has an answer to their pain and questions and doubts.

Endure Hardship • (Withstand)
Hardship comes with the job! Timothy, even as Paul, was sure to encounter hardship in the fruitful years of ministry still before him. Paul reminded Timothy that he had endured hardship when he wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (I Timothy 4:7). Quitting is not an option for a minister of the Gospel.

Do the Work of an Evangelist • (Witness)
A minister of the Gospel must never neglect the importance of soul-winning. Personal evangelism must remain at the very heart of ministry. Introducing men to the Master must be central to all that we do. A minister must never neglect the lost.

Fulfill Your Ministry • (Work)
A minister has a responsibility to do whatever God requires of him. He must leave nothing undone that will advance the cause of the Gospel. The words undone, not attempted, and unfulfilled must be eliminated from his vocabulary. This is the part of the job description that states, “And all other jobs as assigned by God!”