Revelation 2.4

Revelation 2.4

Rev 2.4 Nevertheless, I have this complaint against you: you have lost your first love.

I.        …you have lost your first love

Here Jesus told you have lost your first love. Already we know that in the beginning, this Ephesus church were well trained by St. Paul

We can see Acts 20:20 and 27(Tamil 26)

Acts 20:20 how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,

Acts 20:21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts 20:27 for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

If you take whatever in the beginning we will do the things very enthusiastically but when days go the enthusiasm will go down. Example we can saw many people in our life or we saw our life also when we accept Jesus Christ we spend more time with Jesus through prayer, reading gospel, preaching gospel, following the commandments from bible etc. all we did our level best, the same level of enthusiasm will not there after 5 years or 10 years. In the same way in Ephesus church also how they gave first preference of God then the preference was start reduced. If love was reduced from God means they start love the other things. Other than God if you are loving means that is none other than worldly things. But God don’t like this.

In 1 John 2:15 says “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

The verse in Matthew 24:12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

So the Ephesian starts love the world and worldly things and they were forgotten to follow the law of the God. If anyone not follows the God’s law bible says there are not belongs to God.

John 14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

What God expects from us means they should give first revenge to Him. Then only they like the others or other things. God expects from us is, we should not love worldly wisdom, they should not love money, they should not love their parents and they should not love their children

Jeremiah 9:23 Thus says the Lord: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches,

Jeremiah 9:24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord."

Matthew 10:37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

From these words we can understand God expect the first love from us.

Why God expect the first love from us? Because He loves as more than any things.

How much He loved us

Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

What is Jesus gave two commands for us?   

Mark 12:29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'

Mark 12:31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

The Ephesus church had this kind of love. They gave first reverence to Lord our God but in later, it fell down from this love and it started to love the world. That’s why Jesus told to Ephesus church “Remember therefore from where you have fallen;”

Repent

Continuously God gave an invitation to this church to repent. We will see it in next week.