To the Church in Ephesus
1 “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: 2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which 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. 6 But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
My Understanding: Revelation, chapters 2-3 contain seven letters to seven church congregations in Asia. John is the human instrument chosen by God to deliver these letters, and Jesus Christ is the true author of the letters to the church fellowships. Each letter is addressed to the angel of that specific local church. Commentators I have read present several interpretations for the word “angel,” yet I believe that the Lord has given me the understanding that the angel represents the earthly ministers of each of these local church congregations.
Contained in these letters, Jesus Christ has words, either of affirmation or of condemnation, or both, for each of these church groups. Two of the letters contain affirmations only, one has a condemnation only and the other four contain both affirmation and condemnation. Where a condemnation is present, there is always a call for repentance. And, where a call for repentance exists, there is always a threatened punishment if the church congregation does not repent of its sin. Each letter also concludes with two parts: 1) Calling for all who will hear to listen to what the Spirit says to the churches, and 2) Promises for overcomers.
There are multiple thoughts concerning these letters and how they may or may not apply to today. My belief is that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), and that “the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
In other words, this is God’s living and active word breathed into our hearts that can still speak to church congregations and to individual believers as is applicable to their specific lives and congregations today. The Biblical principles established through these letters are consistent with the rest of New Testament teachings, so I believe the principles presented in these letters are timeless and are still to be taken seriously and applied to today.
So, with that said, I see three or four (depending upon which letter) main divisions within the main body of each letter: The Affirmation, The Condemnation, The Proclamation and the Application. So, now I want to examine this specific letter to the church in Ephesus.
The Affirmation
“I know your deeds…” God knows everything about us. He knows when we sit, rise, walk, lay down, eat, sleep, etc. He knows the good, the bad and the ugly about us. Nothing escapes his knowledge or his notice. I think we forget that sometimes. Our actions, anyway, seem to indicate that we are not always cognizant of the fact that God is watching our every move and hearing every word we say and even knowing every thought we think. I believe it would radically change our lifestyles if we actually gave thought to the presence of Almighty God in every aspect of our daily lives.
“Your hard work and your perseverance…” Based upon the condemnation that follows, i.e. that they had forsaken their first love, I can only conclude then that this hard work and perseverance, though directed apparently toward the right kinds of things, was more flesh driven, as it remains difficult to operate in the power of the Spirit of God within us if we have forsaken (abandoned; ditched) the one we need to give us that power and strength for ministry, if it is to be of the Holy Spirit and not of our own selves. Yet, even though they were forsaking their first love, the Lord still saw fit to acknowledge their hard work.
“You cannot tolerate wicked men…” They appeared to be moral people, holding to some level of spiritual standards of living. They did a lot of the right kinds of things – testing false apostles, persevering through and enduring hardships for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ, and they did not grow weary in doing so. As well, they hated the practices of false teachers and false doctrines. So, they were to be commended for all these good things that they were doing for the sake of the name of Christ.
The Condemnation
Yet, even though they appeared to be good, decent, and moral people who held to a high standard of Christian living and faith, they were still lacking the most important thing of all. They had forsaken their first love, Jesus Christ. Whenever I read this passage of scripture and think of “first love,” I can’t help but think of what it means or meant for most of us to have a “first love” (boyfriend or girlfriend) or even a second or third one that we were just madly in love with. I can still remember those days, even though, for me, that was 40 years ago. I wanted to be with him all the time. We could stay up late at night talking on the phone even if neither of us was saying anything. And, we had a horrible time saying good-night and going to our respective homes and beds. We hated good-byes. We could not wait until we could be married so we could be together forever. He was the first person I thought about in the morning and the last person on my mind before I went to sleep at night. I wanted to share everything with him - all my news, joys, sorrows, excitement, etc. We could just sit for hours holding each other and just being together. We liked a lot of the same kinds of things, and enjoyed doing them together. We still do after 40 years, too.
Well, that is what it means to have Jesus Christ as our “first love,” too. So, when he is not all these things or even part of these things to us, then something is wrong with the relationship. If we treated our spouses, boyfriends or girlfriends with the neglect that many “believers” treat our Lord, those relationships would be in very serious trouble. We need to rethink what it means to truly be in relationship with Jesus Christ and to have him as our “first love.” We should love Jesus just like how I described my love for my husband when we first fell in love and even how we still love each other after 40 years.
The Proclamation
The Lord Jesus does not want us only on Sundays for a couple of hours, he wants us 24/7 and always on call to hear his voice day or night and to obey Him whenever he calls. He wants to have that kind of sweet fellowship with us that I described above about the relationship between two people who really love each other. If we don’t have that kind of relationship with Him, and he is kind of an afterthought or a theology or doctrine we adhere to or a set of religious practices we follow, but we are not in sweet communion with him on a daily and hourly basis, then he is calling us to repent, i.e. to leave our lives of abandoning and neglecting our Lord and to come back into sweet fellowship with him to where we hear his voice speaking to us all the time, and to where we want nothing more than to love, serve and to obey him and to share everything about ourselves with him.
He tells those who have forsaken their first love that if they do not repent that he will come and will remove their lampstand from its place. The lampstands are the churches, so if he removes the church congregation from its place, then this is some kind of judgment that will take place, I believe for the purpose of getting the attention of the church to bring them to their knees in repentance. That judgment can take many forms, but it will entail some kind of hardship. A lamp is a light and we are to be lights to the world, so it could also entail some kind of removal of their effectiveness spiritually in the communities in which they serve. Whatever the judgment may be, we do know the Bible teaches that judgment begins with the family of God and that God disciplines those he loves, and he corrects us so that we will repent and so that we will make the necessary changes to our attitudes, actions and lifestyles, and so we will return to our “first love” or to make him our “first love” for the first time in our lives if we never were truly in a genuine love relationship with him.
The Application
Jesus Christ is saying for us to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. If the Spirit of God is speaking to your heart and is putting a finger on a specific area of your life that is not right with him, then don’t ignore that voice. Listen and obey.
Lastly, Jesus calls us to be overcomers. In every one of these letters he says that to him who overcomes, He will give or promise or provide some kind of spiritual reward or blessing, and many of those or all of them are specific to our eternal rewards in heaven, as though overcoming is intrinsically tied in with our eternal salvation and our hope of heaven. This letter to the church in Ephesus promises to those who overcome that they will have that perfect fellowship with God restored that existed before sin entered into the world. This can only happen to true believers in Jesus Christ, which means true believers are overcomers. The opposite of an overcomer is one who lives a sinful lifestyle and who lives to please self rather than living to please God and to obey him and his teachings. Repentance, perseverance, faith and obedience are all part of being an overcomer who will one day receive our salvation complete when Jesus Christ returns for his bride.
Rest for the Weary / An Original Work / April 23, 2011
Rest for the weary; peace for the soul;
Light in the darkness; mercy untold;
Perfect salvation; pardoned and free,
For Jesus died so that all may believe.
While we are waiting for Your return,
Jesus, Redeemer, let our hearts yearn
For your soon coming to get Your bride,
Washed in Your blood, having been sanctified.
Father, Son, Spirit, all three in One
Giveth salvation through redemption;
Jesus provided the sacrifice,
For our sins blood bought, for He paid the price.
Music, Pg 1
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b58/Christsfreeservant/RestfortheWeary45.jpg
Music, Pg 2
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b58/Christsfreeservant/RestfortheWeary248.jpg
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