The Core Of Love
The Core Of Love
I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Revelation 2:4
Imagine if your church had been founded by Paul, taught by Apollos, and led by the likes of Timothy and John. Imagine Jesus Himself saying of your church, “I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. . . . You have patiently suffered for me without quitting” (Revelation 2:2-3, NLT).
Yet there was a big problem with the church of Ephesus.
As a nineteenth-century British divine put it, “Notwithstanding . . . the works they had brought forth in times past, and the labor to which they had submitted, and the long-suffering patience they had displayed, and the faithful discipline they had exercised, and the false doctrine they hated and denounced . . . there were now the symptoms of backsliding and degeneracy.”a
The church of Ephesus had lost its core of love for the Lord Jesus. Their experience is a reminder that to keep the church strong, we as individuals need to keep our love and devotion to Christ strong.
Listen, Lord, to whoever now says, “Savior, I have forsaken my first love. Forgive me, cleanse my heart, fill me with Your Spirit and Your love.” Thank You, Lord Jesus. Amen.
CORRIE TEN BOOMb
a J. A. Wallace, The Seven Churches of Asia (London: James Nisbet & Co, 1842), 36.
b Corrie ten Boom, Reflections of God’s Glory: Newly Discovered Meditations by the Author of The Hiding Place (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 88.
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