My wife, Donna Marie Rice, is a very knowledgeable and talented servant of Christ.
She has done some writing in regards to her Bible Journaling outreach. As such, she has written
on this verse of the bible and we want to share it with you-
Take Account of His Blessings– Part 4
The final part of our series on “Take Account of His Blessings” deals with the church of
Ephesus. Revelation 2:1-7 (NASB) gives Jesus’ praise, admonition, and warning to the church.
Jesus says, “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate
evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and
you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake,
and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first;
or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place– unless you repent.”
In the book of Revelation, Jesus tells the church how proud He is of them, and yet there was
something with which He had to fault them. They had lost their First Love. I remember when
I first was saved. I could not help but tell others about what Jesus had done. I loved Him so
much, and I was filled with this incredible joy! Everything was new! I was looking at the world
through different eyes. Bible reading was fun! I could not wait to get to church so that I
could learn more about Jesus. Then when I tried witnessing to my classmates, I ran against
resistance. I tried witnessing to my grandmother who was not saved, and I met resistance.
Suddenly, I found out that not everyone is wanting to hear about how great it was that Jesus
saved me. I still loved Jesus, but my enthusiasm waned- a lot!
I imagine that is what happened with the church at Ephesus. They were very good at doing the
right things- they stood up against persecution and persevered, and they were diligent at
weeding out the false teachers that had managed to weasel their way into the church, but all
that they did was more out of duty, not because they loved Jesus. They had lost the blessing
of their First Love!
Baby Christians are so excited when they first come to know Jesus, and then they meet up with
older Christians who are just holding on to the end. The more “mature” Believers will see how
excited the Baby Christians are and say, “That will not last long.” But it does not have to
be like that. For me, it took a good long while to get to the point where sharing my testimony,
talking to people about accepting Jesus as their Savior, Bible Reading, and praying were not
so much something I had to check off my list of things to do, but I truly wanted to do it.
My pastor says when there is no love, there is no life. So, in essence, the church at Ephesus
had become dead. They had forgotten what it was like at the very beginning of their walk with
the Lord, how reading the Scriptures, praying, and witnessing, was a joy, it was as if they
could do nothing else. But Jesus gives them an admonition- repent, remember, go back to your
first love, do the deeds you did before. I believe they may have been doing some of the things
they did at first, but not out of love- more out of duty. There was no joy- kind of doing “the
same ole, same ole” and not realizing that they were becoming a dead church.
It can be so easy for us to fall into that trap ourselves. It is a good thing to go back and
remember what it was like when we first came to Jesus. Remember the joy in our hearts,
remember the thrill of reading His Word and learning all we could, and marveling at the
truths found in Scripture, remember the joy we had of leading someone to know Jesus, and how
excited we were about getting to church so that we could learn more about the One who held
our heart in His hands.
We need to take account of our lives- have we ever had a closer relationship with God than we
are in right now? If so, then we are in a back-slidden condition. There is a solution to that
condition- repentance. When I was in a singing group in my twenties, we sang a song that
said, “Repentance is turning around my friend”, and that is exactly what repentance is,
turning around and going in the opposite direction- a 180-degree position from where we are
right now. Taking account of our lives is needed every so often. It helps us to know where we
stand with Jesus.
Many will reject the Good News that Jesus loves them and wants to save them from eternal
darkness- they will lose their souls to eternal darkness. If you have never asked Jesus to
be your Savior, now is the time. Jesus made the process so simple, a small child can do it.
Simply, ask Him to come into your life and heart, forgive you of your sins, tell Him you are
sorry, and promise and endeavor to live your life for Him the rest of your days.
Revelation 3:20 (KJV) says, “Behold I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice
and open the door, I will come in to him, and will feast with him, and he with Me.”
That is His invitation to us!
