Abandoning our First Love
April 27, 2013
One
of the indictments brought against the church by
When
addressing the church at Ephesus in
The
contrast is stark and speaks volumes! The church was far from dead. It was
active, vital, energetic, and very likely making a large difference in the world.
In many ways, the Ephesian church probably appeared to be one of the most
dynamic and successful churches in its day. Yet, for all their passionate
energy and enthusiastic witness for
The 13th Chapter of First Corinthians often used for its poetic beauty on the virtues of love, also vividly cautions against the fallacy of acting with full passion and conviction without the foundation of God’s love.
John
writes in his first letter that God is love and that anyone presuming to act in
God’s name, must do so by living out of Christ’s love (1
The
challenge for the church is to understand the critical difference between doing
the work of the church and actually being the church! Much like the ancient
church of Ephesus, we may not always have our first love in mind when we act in
the name of
Many Christians call for tremendous resistance against what is deemed as dangerous progression into godless oblivion. Social structures, definitions of morality, and the role of faith in public life are changing rapidly. Christians are understandably outraged at the rapidly-changing culture and are expressing this righteous anger in a passionate drive to hold fast to what is good, right, and sacred.
Many Christians call for tremendous resistance against the traditional expressions of faith and morality. They faithfully and enthusiastically embrace the progressive change of modern life and look to transform an ancient religious structure into a modern, relevant, and inclusive expression of God’s love for all.
Although the two extreme examples of Christian expression represent vastly different understandings of authentic Biblical witness, they also represent something potentially more volatile! They could be the symptoms of a very serious sin—abandoning our first love.
God calls us to make a difference in our world. Sometimes
this genuinely requires that we take on the powers and principalities that
affect our culture. The danger comes when we allow our enthusiastic passion for
all that we believe God wants changed in the world to become more important
than the Christ within us. We start living out of resistance and not in
Our rage will not produce God’s righteousness. Such only comes through the prayerful pursuit of peace, compassion, understanding, and God’s love—the perfect love that casts out all fear.
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