Allowing our love to grow cold toward God is a serious matter and not without its ramifications. There are three urgent exhortations given to the church at Ephesus because of the changing temperature of their love (agape) and then came the warning.
(Rev
2:5, emphasis mine) Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do
the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand
from its place – unless you repent.
1. Remember (present active imperative): go back to the place of
departure. It is a command to remember now and keep on remembering; it avoids
drifting back.
2. Repent (aorist active imperative): it is a command for urgent
action to change the mind.
3. Do (aorist active imperative): do the works you did at first. Obedience to God’s commands is indicative of a love for God (cf. Jn 14:15).
What
is the otherwise? or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand
from its place – unless you repent.
In other words, failure to heed the exhortations would result in the assembly at
Ephesus of ceasing to exist. Their light (lampstand) would be extinguished. It was a call to
repent (change their attitude) as well as their affections.
There
are several theories on what was meant by the expression, You have left your
first love.
John MacArthur interpreted it this way,
“To
be a Christian is to love the Lord Jesus Christ…. But the Ephesians’ passion
and fervor for Christ had become cold, mechanical orthodoxy. Their doctrinal
and moral purity, their undiminished zeal for the truth, and their disciplined
service were no substitute for the love for Christ they had forsaken.”
If
we look at this departure as a violation of the prime directive, keeping in
mind that Christ is to have the preeminence in all things anyway (Col 1:18), then this
should signal that the Ephesians violated the prime directive by their failure
to love God with the totality of their being and love their neighbors as
themselves.
They
were running on a sense of duty without a love for God. They had digressed
spiritually to where they were of no value to God, living in a temporal sphere
of nothingness, uselessness, not because of apostasy but the loss of effective
ministry – I
am nothing (1 Cor 13:2).
Blessing
or judgment or reformation or removal was up to them, the ball was in their court. The core of Christianity is all about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Our focus should be on our relationship with God. It sets the tone and quality of our relationship with others. There is an interesting observation by Dr. B.H. Carroll to
keep things in perspective is that the local church is not immortal, only the
body of Christ is eternal. The local church where I made my confession of faith
in 1976 is no longer in existence.
So,
let me ask you a series of questions. How can we glorify God in all that we
think, say, or do if we are not in love with Yahweh?
How
do we have fellowship with Yahweh if we are not in love with Him and long to be in His presence?
How
do we pray to God if our love has grown cold toward Jesus?
How
do we take the buffeting by the world for Christ if we are not in love with
Him?
How
do we become like Christ if we are not in love with Him?
Why
do we want to go to heaven and be with Jesus forever if we are not in love with
Him?
How
are we to love our enemies if we cannot even love God who is a God of love!?
The question surrounding why the Ephesian believers set aside their love for God
and continued to stand on the side of doctrinal truth is puzzling! That’s why
there are various views surfacing on the meaning of Your first love you have left.
There
is no doubt that the Ephesian church had experienced difficult circumstances,
perhaps even persecution (cf. Rev 2:7). In spite of the difficulties or challenges, there is
no denial of Christ, no growing weary in well-doing on their part! Only, they
had lost their first love.
Yahweh
was not pleased with their spiritual declension though they retained their
doctrinal purity. Whatever the reason for this spiritual malady, there is no
justification for it from Yahweh’s point of view, and His opinion is all that
matters, yes? Sin is in the camp of the Ephesians, the sin of departing from their
first love. The church was not a victim here; this was something that they
caused (voice is active – you have left). As a body of believers, they had
intentionally laid aside their first love. It was an undeniable fact in
Yahweh’s eyes.
The seven churches of Asia were all guilty of disobedience to some degree or another. But it is the church at Ephesus where it is pointed out as a major flaw – Nevertheless I have this against you. Of all the issues stemming from the seven churches of Asia, who would have thought that love for God would be a major problem which naturally leads to having a problem in loving others and being an effective witness for Christ in their circle of influence.
Perhaps there is way too much emphasis on doing rather than having a loving and vibrant relationship with Yahweh? I am not suggesting that works are not important (cf. Jas 2:18), but a right relationship with Yahweh and being protective of it charts the path we take. If that gets out of whack on our part, having left our prime directive, we quickly find ourselves in the weeds, a place of no usefulness, a place that profits nothing, and we become nothing! Think of it, “What are we doing in the weeds of this world, sons of God or daughters of God? Have we forgotten our place? We are the children of the King of Kings and the Lord of lords!” The weeds are no place for royalty!
There is another takeaway for me here. Not only can this happen to us if we are not diligent, but it is the word motive, the underlying reason for whatever we do. There were some positives things coming out of the church of Ephesus (Rev 2:2-3, 6). The exterior looked good, but God knew what was going on within the interior of their hearts. The heart was pumping blood as it was designed to do, but Yahweh knew what was motivating the Ephesians wasn’t love (agape) for Him or for others (cf. Rom 5:5).
Some liken this first love to marriage, passionate in the beginning, and then over time, the intensity and sensitivity fade. A relationship is a two-way street. God
is immutable, eternally unchanging; He will not walk away. It is us; it is always us who have changed, not God. We can become cold toward the Person of God and in spending time in His presence. We have abandoned our responsibility to the prime directive of all of Scripture. We can only imagine the countless times in the lives of believers in the course of human history whose first love they have left!
Trying to live for God with a wrong
motive is never profitable; it is an act of futility. Yahweh is interested in
why we do what we do. He doesn’t want robotic believers; this is why right choices are so instrumental in interfacing with our faith, making the right choice for the glory of God! Since He knows the heart (Prov 16:2; Jer 17:10; Rom 8:8; Heb
4:12), we cannot keep anything from Him. He knows if our motive is pure or
impure. Paul told the Thessalonians,
But
as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we
speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts (1 Thes 2:4).
How does a body of believers get to that point? How does an individual believer get to that point? The answer to those two questions is the same. I have a theory. The answer on how they got there is found in the answer on how to get back by heeding those three urgent exhortations: remember, repent, and do (Rev 2:5). I think they took their eyes off the ball on what was critically important to Jesus.
They were so caught up in what they were doing that they lost sight of what Jesus wanted as a priority in their spiritual life – the first works. I am going to suggest, and it is merely a suggestion, that the first works are the prime directive. You know; those two commands where all the Law and the Prophets hang (Mt 22:40)? In service to God, they lost sight of the prime directive. How do we attract others into having the right relationship with God anyway when our relationship with Him is in the nothing zone?
The church of Ephesus decided to walk away from loving God wholeheartedly and
loving others as themselves. What truly motivated them to do this is speculatory at best; the
common denominator is sin, and it is unjustifiable before God; that we all can agree
upon no matter how we want to define “Your first love you left.” But I also believe
that we can agree that this is highly unloving and ungrateful for what God has
done for us to treat Him this way in any present tense, yes?
He
treats this departure very seriously because our fellowship with God is
based on trust and love. If I have not love, I am nothing, Paul says to the Corinthians. The
quickest way to a state of nothing is leaving your first love. <><
So don't make judgments about anyone ahead of time – before the Lord returns. For He will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due (1 Cor 4:5, NLT).
Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love (1 Cor 16:13-14).
