What if you were to receive a letter from God? Do you think that you would consider that letter to be important? In a sense, the whole Bible is a letter from God to us. Other parts of the Bible are literally letters. Some of the Bible’s most famous letters are the seven letters in Revelation 2-3. But, these are not just ancient letters of only historical value. Every single letter has a very important application to our contemporary churches and to us as individuals. Each of the letters follows this pattern: the recipients, the identification of the author (which is Jesus, Himself), the account of the church, an assessment of the church, a call to endure, and an appeal to hear what the Spirit of the Church is saying to the church.
The message of each of these seven letters is relatively easy to understand, but not necessarily easy to follow. For example, the concise message of this first letter found in Revelation 2:1-7 is to “Keep Jesus First!” We are confronted every day to be wholeheartedly in love with Jesus.
Know this about being in love with Jesus. God cannot be deceived about our love relationship with Him. Add to this fact that our good works cannot replace our love for Jesus. Neither can good theology replace our love for Jesus. Neither can Godly values. The Church at Ephesus gave evidence of all of these qualities, but the LORD of the Church, says to them, “But, I have this against you, you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The bottom line is that nothing can replace our love for Jesus.
So, we must do as the text suggests. We must remember what it used to be like. We must repent. Upon repentance, we must return.
The stakes are high. Jesus says, “We must either repent or He will remove us.” Removed from what? Removed from our place of influence. Removed from the power of God.
The Old Testament gives us the story of Samson. God told his parents that his hair should never be cut (a Nazirite vow). The covenant promise was that God’s strength would be upon him. Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah. The Philistines came to her and offered her money to discover the secret to his great strength. At first, he told her that if he would be tied up with seven bowstrings that had not been dried, he would become as any other man. She tied him up and called for the Philistines. He broke free and whipped the Philistines who had come for him. She asked again and this time he said that if he was to be tied up with new ropes, he would lose his strength. A third time he said that the strength would leave him if the seven braids of his hair would be woven into the fabric on the weaver’s loom. Again, he broke free. Finally, after “she nagged him day after day and pled with him until she wore him out, he told her the whole truth.” He told her that if his hair would be shaved, he would lose his strength. When he fell asleep, off came his hair. Awakening to fight off the Philistines, the Bible says, “When he awoke from his sleep, he said, ‘I will escape as I did before and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the LORD had left him.”
I am so afraid that the church today is in danger of not even being aware when the strength and power of the LORD has left us. We are busy, so we think we have HIS power. We believe the Bible and thus have right theology, so we assume all is well. We stand for Godly things, so we think surely we are ok. But God says perhaps to some of us, “But what about your love for me.” Not your love for things, not your love for programs, not your love for busyness, not your love for the work of the church, but your love for me.”