March 29: SUSTAINABLE CHARACTER (Part 2)

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

Let us not underestimate the lengths that our adversary will traverse in order to cause us to be ineffective witnesses for Christ. Considering the massive onslaught of deception, the sturdy stance for truth in the church at Ephesus is admirable. And, even as the situation progresses, they are forced to withstand a rise in persecutions under the pagan Roman government. In addition to a steady trickle of executions for sport, there were at least two broad-scale mass executions of Christians in the first century: Under Emperor Nero in 67AD and again under Emperor Domitian in 81AD.

As a consequence, the church unwittingly and corporately began to erect a thick shell around the walls of its heart. And towards the end of the first century and the beginning of the second, there were few if any eyewitnesses to the earthly ministry of Christ left in the church. As the decades wore on, they lost their focus on Him, the Rock upon which they were built. While the adamant determination to guard doctrinal truth was admirable, it would collapse as unsustainable apart from love for the Lord, for that is the only basis upon which we can possess a sincere love for the lost. For love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7

A closer look at this picture will reveal that Satan very purposefully seeks to drive a wedge of separation between truth and love. Such a “divorce” renders the gospel powerless to save. Presenting Biblical doctrine in the world apart from a genuine love for people only pushes the lost further away from God while seriously endangering the proponents of a loveless “gospel”.

Paul could see the state of affairs in the church at Ephesus, and the direction that it was taking. His famous phrase, speaking the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), puts a finger directly upon the solution. That hard shell around their hearts had tainted their doctrinally sound message with a hollow ring. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, written around 62AD provides a bird’s eye view of what was taking place there; he knew well the pagan influences, the persecutions, and the dark ways of the adversary whose intention is to kill the love for Christ in the hearts of His followers. Satan can use just about anything, good or bad, this world has to offer as a weapon to destroy love for the Savior. Do not allow him to supplant your supreme love for Jesus! By the time of the writing of Revelation—three to four decades later—Jesus stated plainly, with great pain in His heart: “you have left your first love.” Revival was needed then, just as it is now.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

For further study: Jeremiah 31:3; Matthew 16:18; Luke 6:32; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:19-21; Revelation 1:5