The Start of Something Renewed
I read the Bible each year. Correction, I complete a successive lap in the Holy Bible each year. I listen to the whole Bible, and then read it in more specific instances. At the end of 2023, in the chronological plan my wife and I were doing together, invariably I encountered Revelation 2 along the way.
Verses 1-7, which comprise the letter from Jesus to the angel of the church in Ephesus struck home… hard. The commendation Jesus gave that church resonated with affirmations that I proudly sought. I wanted to hear those in my life in that moment, and I wanted the church I was a part of to give praise for its part in various forms of steadfastness and faith. I wanted to see His order reflect my expectation of order, but alas that was a bridge too far.
In a season where I individually was digging in my heels to promote discipline in a church context, I became inclined to think that an earnest witness and pursuing a high moral standard would win the day in a season of strife. I became just another believer guilty of forsaking the love I had at first.
Think about that verse, verse 4. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” What love did I have at first?
Was it the bond with Jesus I wanted to credit myself with developing over my decades as a follower? No, that would become a work or badge of honor. And thus we are saved by faith through grace so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:9).
No, I realized that the love I had forsaken was the love that I had in my corner all along. Not a love I had for Christ, but the love Christ had for me. My expectations of an outcome among brothers and sisters can’t substitute for whatever the Lord will do with His church in His will for His Kingdom.
Verse 5 continues, “Consider how far you have fallen!” Was I at rock bottom from a personal crisis borne of sin pattern? With gratitude, no! But I was endeavoring to wrestle with God over whose vision for His church (locally) ought to bear out. I had fallen from standing with Christ. I had dared for a time to argue my case like Job, to no avail. What He wanted was followship from me not conformity from others to a goal I promoted. He deals with each of us individually, and He wanted renewal. To get there I had to repent and do the things you did at first (verse 5).
Around this time I started reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship. One key point he makes is the call to follow Christ means we solve for the equation of “only believers obey and only the obedient believe.” Obeying Christ didn’t mean stubborn advocacy so that I may be justified as being correct. Obeying Christ meant a willingess to follow him, even if it were somehwere new in fellowship, so that his justification of me might be seen as a fruit of believing in Him through obedience.
Clearly there’s a biographical sketch that is obscured on purpose in this post, but that’s the point isn’t it. Trials we go through that become those “we count as joy” (James 1:2-4) aren’t about how we reconcile with others (though praiseworthy as that happens) they are how we reconcile with the Father. He foreknew us to place that love of grace personified in Christ in our corner.
This site is a now a place where that love I had at first, in fact where we all had at first, is a testimony for the sake that Christ had known and loved us all along the way. Don’t you forget it! -Mike