Ephesus: The Church
Who Lost Her Love
In this week’s video teaching, Sue explains that sin keeps
us from close fellowship with Jesus. It
also keeps us from experiencing the abundant life promises found in
Scripture. We actually nurture our “pet
sins”. We indulge in them. They’re inviting. But one day, they will demand from us more
than we want to pay. We will choke on
the consequences of our “pet sins”. They
may seem small, but they need to be tamed.
Jesus wrote this letter to the seven churches to help them eliminate
their sin. Sue challenges the student to
pray for God to identify and eliminate our “pet sins”. I am definitely praying!
So here’s the church of Ephesus in a nutshell: They were hard-working and persevering. They had sound doctrine, meaning that they
stuck to the Bible as far as beliefs went.
They also had a hatred of false practices. Their problem was that they’d lost their
love. Let’s translate that into what it
might look like – then and now. The
church of Ephesus would be strict, rigid, legalistic, unforgiving, judgmental,
works-oriented, full of hypocrites. This
sounds like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.
Sadly, it also sounds like me at times.
I am grateful to this lesson for putting that into perspective for me.
Thankfully, the study doesn’t stop there. Jesus provides a “fix” to put Ephesus on the
right path: remember from where you have
fallen, repent and do the things you did at first. When you first saved, how did you feel? How did you act? How did you pray? How did you witness? Were you more passionate than you are
today? Were you more in love with
Christ? Did you seek Him at every
opportunity because you wanted to know Him so desperately? Think about this for awhile.
If you have any suggestions for how to recapture the
“honeymoon” of your salvation, PLEASE leave a comment!
Memorize: Revelation
1:5b-6
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