Good day dear friends.
Please keep David Baker and his family in your prayers. His mother died yesterday in Arlington, Texas. May the Lord bring comfort to David and family during these days. Also, Jo Ann Bryan will be having a procedure done this afternoon in San Antonio, Texas at the SA Spinal Hospital. We pray the Lord bring healing to her.
We continue to talk about Building Up the Body of Christ and here is our study guide:
Thursday: Read Revelation 2:1-7. Here the Lord Jesus is speaking to the angels of the church in Ephesus. Read what the Lord is saying. You can compare that to the other churches and their deeds in the verses that follow. But the Lord has a word to the angel of our church. What do you suppose that word is. Could we learn from this passage in chapter two and apply it to the church here?
Here is that passage in The Message version:
2:1 Write this to Ephesus, to the Angel of the church. The One with Seven Stars in his right-fist grip, striding through the golden seven-lights' circle, speaks: 2 "I see what you've done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can't stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders. 3 I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out. 4 "But you walked away from your first love - why? What's going on with you, anyway? 5 Do you have any idea how far you've fallen? A Lucifer fall! "Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle. 6 "You do have this to your credit: You hate the Nicolaitan business. I hate it, too. 7 "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches. I'm about to call each conqueror to dinner. I'm spreading a banquet of Tree-of-Life fruit, a supper plucked from God's orchard."
Outward form intact, doing the right things. Inwardly, where is the love? That's the message in this passage to the people of this church. You're working hard and doing all the right things, but inside, you're so far from your "first love" the love of Jesus, that what good does it do that you're doing so much work? Does this sound familiar? Does it hit home? We can, as a church or as individual members of it, become so busy with busy-ness that we forget all about Jesus. The prime example was John Wesley who for so many years of his life had the outward form of service, but inwardly didn't know of the love Christ had for him and John had really not thought about loving Christ like he needed. It took that evening lay-led prayer service where someone read Luther's Preface to the Romans, when it made sense! It clicked. John Wesley joyously wrote that he felt his heart "strangely warmed." He recovered his first love. And from then he was never the same person. Can you imagine that happening wide spread among all of God's people in a church? There would be no limit to what God could do in our midst if we all turned our hearts back to that love that Christ!
PRAYER: Come, oh Lord of love to me. Let me recover that first love that was from You to me and let me love You like I should. Let it be contagious from me to others. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Have a great and blessed day!
e.v.
