Joining Jesus – 20th May 2019

4. Repent
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Revelation 2:1-7
It is possible that over the time that you have been a Christian, the love for Jesus and His Mission that you had at the beginning has waned. Perhaps it is true of you, just like the church at Ephesus that: You have forsaken the love you had at first.
If this is the case the you do not need to despair, but you do need to do something rather than just ‘accepting this situation’.
The church at Ephesus was told to:
Consider how far you have fallen!
The best way to ‘consider’ is to take time to reflect on how things were. If you keep (or kept) a journal, then look back at the time when you know that you had a deep love for Jesus and read the things that you have written down. If not, I suggest you grab hold of a pen and a notebook and spend some time writing down some of the things that you remember about the time(s) when your love for Jesus was real and then, once you have written down what you can remember, read through what you have written.
As you read and reflect upon the words you have written you will, I believe, be prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask God to do something in your life that will cause you, once again, to have a deep love for Jesus.
This leads on to the second thing that the church at Ephesus, and you, have been told you must do:
Repent and do the things you did at first.
It is important that your time with God doesn’t end with you just wishing you could go back to how things were. The truth is that you need a fresh and present tense encounter with God. This will follow repentance!
The word repentance, in the context of this letter, means something like ‘turn around and get back on track’. Your life may have been going in an increasingly ‘non-Jesus-centred’ direction for months, years or even decades. You may have become increasingly focused on things that have little or nothing to do with being a follower of Jesus. All of these things have somehow pushed out, or covered over, the love that you felt for Jesus – so!
Stop going in the direction that you are heading in, turn around and then begin to do the things that you did in that time (those times) when your love for Jesus was real.
This week, I strongly encourage you to make some time to CONSIDER ‘how far you have fallen’ and then to REPENT!
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.