Read Revelation 2:1-7

I can still take you right to the spot where it happened. I can tell just about every detail of when I completely lost the desire to play basketball.

“You have one half to prove to me that you have what it takes to play college basketball, because right now, I don’t think you do.”

Any passion that I had held onto for dear life was sucked out of me so much so that I haven’t even played a competitive game of pick up in 10 years.

There was nothing left.

When you lose the passion, the heart, the “why” behind something, the consequences are detrimental.

For the next week, we are going to be in Revelation 2 and 3, reading the letters that God gave to 7 prominent churches of the time. There is so much more in these letters that we won’t be able to touch on this week but we are going to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of these churches and apply both to our lives today.

The first letter is to the church in Ephesus.

Now the Ephesians were doing a lot of things right. When people were coming and claiming to be apostles, they were testing their word to make sure they were accurate. They were not tolerating heretical teaching and people.

They were checking a lot of boxes.

However, there was something that God had “against them”:

“You have left your first love”

There are a couple of different interpretations of what “first love” could mean. Many agree that it means either a diminished love for God or one another.

But I thought the Ephesians were all doing good things?

If you forget or shy away from the “why” and the true passion for what it is you’re doing, are you actually doing any good? Are you actually making an eternal impact?

How often do you find yourself going through the motions in your faith? Do you find yourself forgetting or shying away from the true passion of experiencing life through Jesus?

Although there was a big “forsaken love” issue in the Ephesian church, God gave them hope.

“Therefore, remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first.”

Will you take a moment to take an honest inventory of your life and see if you have “left your first love”?

In what way have you lost the passion in your faith? How have you lost your love for others?

If you’re not ALL IN with God and others, your impact will quickly diminish.

As John goes on to describe, there is hope for deliverance if we return to our ways of old.

Take a moment to ensure that you are ALL IN with your love for God and others. If you’re not, in what ways are you going to commit to getting back on track?

Jake Lawson