In the eyes of their contemporaries they must have seemed a strange, little sect, that was out of step with their popular, pagan culture. I wonder how discouraged at times, they felt, when others regarded them as odd. The message of Jesus to them was meant to be encouraging. His message is also timeless. It applies to every generation, including us. Jesus still gives us vision of encouragement for our day if we seek it.

The words that impress themselves on my mind are from his letter to the church in Ephesus. (Revelation 2:1-7) "These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walk among the seven golden lampstands." Jesus holds the stars (the angels or leadership) in his right hand (the hand of power). What a reassurance that is! He holds us in his hands and will never let us go - "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand." (John 10:28) He walks among the lampstands - the churches. He is present in our midst. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matthew 18:20)

"I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance." This letter is addressed to a congregation that was very active, and doing all manner of good and important work. Jesus takes note of all that they are doing and commends them for it.

"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. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary." They have been witnessing to the truth of the Scriptures and have had to confront those who would teach otherwise. Making disciples of Christ involves an intellectual dimension. The forces of evil try to insinuate themselves into the life of the church through teaching that is deceptive.

Worship of the mother goddess, Diana of the Ephesians, and the sexual promiscuity that went along with it, was prevalent. It is eerily similar today. The leadership of the church has to be vigilant in guarding the truth. Paul warned the Ephesian leaders before he left them, "Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears." (Acts 20:30,31) Confronting false teaching in the culture has always been part of the witness of the church. The church should never be intimidated by the pressures to conform to what is popular, or trendy, or considered politically correct. This congregation is to be commended for its faithfulness to the Word of God, and its rejection of false teaching, despite the hardship of offending people and being criticized for doing so. Persevere and do not grow weary.

"Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first." What is it to forsake your first love? It is to let your vision grow dim. It is to lose your first flush of passion. In officiating at weddings it is always a pleasure to see those couples who are excited about each other, who are deeply in love, and for whom the ceremony is more than a formality but a celebration of their first love. So it is when a person first comes to faith in Christ. But to forsake your first love is to grow indifferent. It is to lose your excitement. It is to become routine in all that you do. It is to be motivated by duty rather than by desire. It is to grow self-centered so that you are more concerned for your own comfort, your own fulfillment, rather than serving the needs of others.

In that cave on Patmos I prayed that I might renew my first love and receive a new vision of Jesus's great commandment: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind [with all your passion and prayer and intelligence]...Love your neighbor as yourself [love others as well as you love yourself]." (Matthew 22:37,39)

To love means to put the other first. It is to want to give rather than to get. It is to care for the other person more than for yourself. It is the antithesis of egotism. It is impossible to do in your own strength. It is only possible by a work of divine grace. It is only when the love of God in Christ, demonstrated on the Cross, gains entry to our hearts, our souls, and our minds, that we can be freed from bondage to self to love God and others. It does not come naturally to us. Every day we have to surrender to the love of God in Christ, and seek the filling of his Spirit, in order to overthrow our natural selfishness and indifference. Our tendency, proneness, or inclination to self-centeredness, is so deep-seated in us that we will fall from the heights of our first love unless we deliberately, and consistently, do the things we did at first, when we came to faith in Christ. What are those things we need to do to renew our love for God and neighbor?

First, we need to repent (be willing to change) and come to the foot of the Cross for forgiveness and redemption. We have to die to self and rise again to new life in Christ, who died in our place and rose again for our acceptance and restoration. This must be a daily exercise if we are to be saved from our self-centeredness and the condemnation that goes with it. It means humbling ourselves before God and seeking his salvation. It is to go against the slogan "It's all about me!" and instead seek God's will for our lives.

Second, we need to seek the filling of the Spirit whose fruit is love. It is only by the power of the indwelling Spirit that we can love God and others. We have no power of ourselves to help ourselves. "God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us." (Romans 5:5)

Third, we need to seek the guidance and nurture of the Word of God so that we may know how to love God and others. Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments...He who has my commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves me.. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching." (John 14:15,21,23) In order for our love to be ignited and fueled we need to read the Scriptures daily. The Bible is a love letter from God. Every time we read it in faith, with the illumination of the Spirit, we will have our love stirred up. The teaching of the Scriptures guides us as to what we need to do to love God and others.

Fourth, we need to pray constantly so that our love will be renewed and grow stronger. Daily times of prayer will strengthen our love. W.E. Sangster (1900-1960) Methodist minister of Westminster Central Hall, London, wrote, "How can I get this love? You will know you haven't got it. You will know how much you want it, for yourself and for the church...It is a gift of God. You cannot get it by your own will. No sinner can say with sense: 'Go to! I will have love.' You cannot get it by reason. John Wesley said: 'Reason cannot produce the love of God. Love never flowed from any fountain but gratitude to our Creator.' If you want the way put into one word, it is the word 'Attend'. Attend to God in prayer. See him as revealed by Jesus. Look...look...look. Longing will awake in you, and longing, and loving (in this context) are almost indistinguishable." (The Pattern of Prayer, pp.83,84)

Fifth, we need to give ourselves in service to others in the Church and in our community. Just as a lover learns to express his love physically, affectionately, emotionally, and through gift-giving, recognizing that he is responding to the love he has received from the loved one; so we give ourselves in tangible ways through our stewardship, our tithing, our sacrificial service, our caring for others. We do this, not "reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." (2 Corinthians 9:7) We are motivated by our love, not just by our duty. "Let us not love in word and speech, but in deed, and in truth." (1 John 3:18)

Let me close with these words by W.E. Sangster about how he renewed his first love after a time of discouragement. "I felt I had lost God. Spiritual things had become unreal to me. Doubts darkened my mind. I lost appetite for the holy vocation to which I believed God had called me. The conviction grew in my heart that the one thing an honourable man could do would be to give it up. And yet I wanted God. In those months of awful darkness, nothing was more sure to me than my hunger for him. All the varied wants of my heart had become resolved into the one great cry of the questing soul, 'Oh, that I knew where I might find him!' One night I had reached the breaking point. My mind was wearing with the effort of pondering these problems over and over again. My heart was sick with hope long deferred. I sat at midnight in the darkness of my study on the border of despair, when a friend came to me with words of unsurpassed comfort. He knew my need. He said, 'You are chasing your shadow: the hunger within you is a mark of his presence.' I know those words will not seem magical to you, but I have no language to describe the effect they had then upon me. To my poor soul they were the authentic words of the living God. I grasped the truth of what he said. This hunger! - the one consuming passion of my soul - a mark of his presence. The God I had sought far was here at home. He was in my heart: the hunger as well as the food. He seemed to say 'Have I been so long time with you and yet have you not known me?'

In that moment I knew the trembling joy of having God in my heart and knowing he was there. And that was the real beginning of an intimate experience of God in me. If you deeply want him, in some measure you already have him. Turn and recognize his presence. Turn and obey the command he lays upon you. The greatest thing in earth and heaven is within your grasp." (Why Jesus Never Wrote a Book, pp.70,71)

How is your love for God and neighbor? Is it a first love - a passionate love, an enthusiastic love? Does it brighten your vision for the future? If not, seek to renew it. Renew it through repentance, through the infilling of the Spirit, through the guidance and nurture of the Scriptures, through constant prayer, and through giving. "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." (1 John 4:9)

Amelia Plantation Chapel
Amelia Island, Florida