Good Afternoon Everyone,
I pray that the Christ, the Risen Lord of Hosts, is speaking to you today through His comforter the Holy Spirit.
Here is the sermon devotional copied out of my church bulletin:
In Revelation 2 we read a message that Jesus gave to the Church at Ephesus. He commended them for the work they had done, but He also told them they were far from where they should be. In fact Jesus told them that if they didn't return to their first love He was going to remove their "lampstand".
The Church at Ephesus was carrying out all the things that a Church was supposed to do and Jesus pointed those things out to them. Jesus said, " 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. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary." But the Church members at Ephesus had lost that love for Jesus with which they had begun their walk and now they were just going through the motions of serving Jesus and of being the Church.
The secret of a spiritually alive Christian and a spiritually alive Church is not a more rigid ethic nor a more profound intellectualism involving the things of God, but a deeper love for Jesus. As a Church and as Christians we must love Jesus deeply or else we loose our reason for existing. The Church at Ephesus had lost their love for Jesus, but kept the form of a church which had no life. On the outside it looked alive, but on the inside it was dead.
The answer for Ephesus is the answer for us, REPENT! Confess and turn around from the direction you are headed. Return to loving Jesus first and foremost and let that love direct you in your actions.
