Labor With No Love

“And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” (Re 2:3-4 AV)

 

When I read of the testimony of Ephesus, it moves me this church was so faithful in the work of the LORD, enduring hardships for His name, yet not walking in love with Him.  Ephesus started out well.  They started a church, established a church, and was fully functional in eighteen months.  That is amazing.  Paul started this church amid strong turmoil.  He was set to defend the faith in the midst of a hostile crowd when the saints intervened and would not allow him.  Rather, one of their own defended the faith and took a beating because of it.  The church at Ephesus was known for its love for Christ and one another.  Yet something happened along the way.  They showed great patience in enduring the hardships that come with being a new and thriving church.  They strove for the name of Christ and labored much to bring that little church into a stable situation.  But among all their sacrifice and toil, they forget the most important thing.  Like Marth who was cumbered about with much business, Ephesus forget to maintain their close and personal relationship with Christ.  The thing that started it all.

It is not uncommon for a young man seeking training for ministry to backslide in the midst of his college career.  The demands on his time are almost unnatural.  He has school work to do.  But he also has a job he works to pay for school.  In my own college preparatory age, I worked close to eighty hours a week at a restaurant and went to school full-time.  The rationale was the harder I worked, the more please God would be with me.  Since I was studying the word of God, there was no reason to read it devotionally.  What a mistake.  Add to that the time I spent in church services and there was absolutely no time for journaling or prayer.  It was those eighteen months of intense work and poor time management that spiritually hurt me more than anything else that has happened since.  What made this an even poorer choice than I realized was this happened relatively early in my Christian life.  I had not matured to the point that I could handle such a spiritually starving routine.  Then the LORD caused me to slow down.  I didn’t have a choice.  He brought to me my wife and soon after that, children.  Dropping for a full load to part-time school and changing jobs which did not demand nearly as much of my time helped.  But still, adding a family only replaced one commitment with another.  All this time the LORD gave me opportunities to serve in a local church.  But it took several years of this pace to finally realize I had allowed what started it all to fade.  The LORD saved me so that I may know Him (John17:3).  He did not save me so that I could ignore Him while burning out for Him.  I learned the hard way the most important of all spiritual disciplines is to read the word of God devotionally, journal, and pray.  There have been great losses along the way.  Losses that did not have to happen if I made devotional time the highest priority.

To this day, I preach devotional time regularly.  It is something I bring up whenever the context of my sermons allowed for it.  Journal, journal, journal.  This is my ministry.  If the LORD would use me to instill in the lives of the saints that personal devotional time is the most important of all spiritual disciplines and it is to be passionately pursued every day, then the LORD would have gotten out of this poor man’s life what He wanted.  Ephesus did much for the LORD.  They had a reputation of love for God and love for one another.  They had that reputation because of their business about the LORD’s work.  What they didn’t have was a testimony of love for one another and the LORD based on how much time they spent increasing those relationships.  Salvation is a wonderful thing.  I look forward to our eternal rest.  I look forward to seeing those who have gone on before.  But most importantly, I look forward to finally meeting my Savior face to face and the transformation that results.  I look forward to loving my Savior as I should have all along.  To finally be rid of the old man and his lust for sin so that my heart is totally and completely devoted to the One who gave Himself for me.