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Revelation: Discovering Life for Today and Eternity – Week Two


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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