How the Lord praises the church of Ephesus! It was patient in persecutions, devoted to the apostles’ teaching, orthodox in doctrine, faithful to the Bible as the Word of God, tirelessly exposing heresies and false teachers, demonstrating living faith—and all that in the Name of Jesus. It seemed to be perfect, but a great anti-climax follows: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
Love can easily depart in the battle for truth. Fighting for truth deteriorates into fighting against people, and then love disappears. Love rejoices with the truth1 and if that love is lacking, truth becomes cold and hard. You will then sometimes give another person a piece of your mind. You then thunder on that you are right. Your tongue then becomes as sharp as a razor and wounds others. You think you know everything. However, truth that does not shine brightly with love and life through a person is no truth—that person is only a resounding gong, a clanging cymbal.2 Even if you know all there is to know, but you have no love, you are nothing.3 Even if you give away everything you possess, but you have no love, you gain nothing.4 “God is love,” John says.5
God has many characteristics: omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience, holiness and so forth, but the essence of His being is love. Everything He does stems from this—His judgments and acts of creation, the scattering of those who are proud in their inmost thoughts, and also the lifting up of the humble.6 Love is the root of a tree with many branches, and bearing many fruits on those branches. Love was what made Him look upon us with compassion. God so loved the world. And the Son of God so loved us in the same way. We are able to become children of God because He loved us before we could love Him. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is (also) what we are.”7 By the Spirit we start to say, “Abba, Papa, Father”8—children of God and heirs.
Heirs get everything their father owned. The Heavenly Father bestows everything He owns upon His children. That is why we are called co-heirs with Christ.9 Who does not remember the first time he or she fell in love? What incredible feelings you experienced. The other person was completely at the centre of your thoughts. You hardly thought of yourself. Your focus was totally on the other person: ‘If only he… if only she… is happy.’ That is like your first meeting with, and feelings for, Jesus—the One who loved you so much that He did not want you to be lost and go to hell. You were able to blossom in His love. You were open completely in your inner being to His incredible love. And you loved Him so much. But what happens if you lose that first love? Compare it with marriage. Have drudgery and tedium pervaded your marriage? Have they also pervaded your Christian faith? Has practising your faith become a mere habit with duties and responsibilities? In that case the end is clear—losing one’s first love in Christ will lead to a person leaving the faith just as losing one’s first love in a marriage will lead to estrangement and ultimately divorce.
• The love referred to here is agápē. This is also what 1 Corinthians 13 sings about; and we have seen this agápē love-in-action in a perfect way in the Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever wants to get to know God should look at Jesus. John writes about this kind of loving many times in his Gospel and his Epistles.
Bible References:
1.1 Corinthians 13:6 2. 1 Corinthians 13:1 3.1 Corinthians 13:2 4.1 Corinthians 13:3 5.1 John 4:7–21 6.Luke 1:46–53 7.1 John 3:1 8.Romans 8:15-17 9.Romans 8:17
