Return to Your First Love |Revelation 2

Jesus’ message to the church at Ephesus was to repent, return to their first love, and do the works they did at the beginning. But weren’t the Ephesians heroes of the faith – a church facing daily opposition and persecution? How could they lose their first love? And what are the works of first love Jesus requires us to do?

 See Revelation 2:2-6 NIV

This is an extraordinary passage of scripture. 

Jesus said saw their deeds, their hard work.

The Church at Ephesus had persevered.

They clung to correct doctrine and rejected false teachers and leaders.

They hated wickedness and wouldn’t tolerate it in the church.

They endured hardship for Jesus’s name. They didn’t get worn out and quit. 

Many Christians today would consider a Biblically sound church that carefully guarded scripture, persevered through persecution and hardship, and had good leadership a good church.

But truth is not enough. Right doctrine (right believing) is not enough. Righteousness (Right living) is not enough.

Jesus next words to us are a wake up call:

Revelation 2:4-6 NIV

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

1 Corinthians 13 is the core of Jesus' message to the righteous Ephesians. Without love, even truth, even righteousness is not enough.

God has always required us to pursue truth and love. “But the greatest of these is love.”

Without love, Jesus would return to this church and remove its lampstand – it’s light, it’s influence to the dark, demon worshiping city of Ephesus. Love and truth make us the light of the world. Without love, we lose our light. Without love we cannot represent Jesus well.

Come Back to Your First Love

Do you remember the love you had for Jesus and for God when you were first born again. I do! The first six weeks I was a Christian were like a honeymoon. I heard God so clearly and I felt so loved. I felt so free after I repented of my sins.

What is First love?  

1 John 4:10 NIV

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:19 NIV

We love, because He first loved us.

First love, is experiencing, feeling the love God has for you. First love is God’s love for you that will manifest in your lives as love for yourself and others.

 “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” Revelation 2:5. 

Activation: Return to The Works You Did at First

When I was first born again, I felt closest to God when helping others. I volunteered at a homeless shelter and just loved people there any way I could. God poured His love through me.

Then I joined a prison ministry at the county jail. I had been a criminal defense lawyer for several years and felt comfortable talking to people in jail. I experienced God's love for them in a new, indescribable way as I tried to love and help those behind bars.

Scripture tells us that in loving others the love of God will be made complete in us. 

1 John 4:12 NIV

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

What were the works of your first love? What did you do that most connected your heart to God when you experienced the “first love” of God. Now, go do some of those things today and every day. It really is in loving others that God's love is made complete in us.