What if someone approached you today and said they’d been watching you? Before you could react, they asserted that they had been watching you all your life and knew everything about you. They knew what you had for dinner last night and breakfast this morning. They knew the grades you made in elementary school and the secrets you told on the playground. In fact, they confessed that they knew every secret about you, perhaps the last movie you watched, the last careless word you uttered, the last website you visited, everything down to the deepest hidden things about you. What would your response to this person be? Fear that someone was following you? Anger that your private life had been violated? Perhaps relief, that someone finally knew what it was you’d been going through? Now what if that person said they know you’ve professed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but everything they’ve observed in your life up to this point has not supported that profession. They’ve seen your unwillingness to read His Word, pray, let alone share your faith. They’ve seen how your heart is, they know the unconfessed sin in your life or the patterns of sin and disobedience, and they challenge you that your profession was superficial. That there is no way you could possibly be a Christian and live they way you have been. What would your response be now? Resentment because this person has no right to judge you? Anxiety because you’ve been exposed as a fraud? Or maybe pain and repentance because you know they’re right, that you have not been living your life in accordance with your profession of faith? Now what if I told you the person that knew everything about you and questioned you was Jesus Christ. Would that change your response? Would you insert a “but Lord” to His findings on your life? This is exactly what Jesus did in His letters to the 7 churches in Revelation 2-3 and it is exactly what each of us face when we meet Him at judgment. While these letters serve as a warning of judgment to particular churches, we can parallel their application to our individual lives.
In Revelation 2, John records Jesus’ letter to the Church in Ephesus. In verse 2 He writes, “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” Revelation 2:2-5 By all accounts, this church was a discerning body, able to spot deceptive teachers, unlike their brothers in Colossae or Galatia. But note the warning Jesus gives them, “you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Maybe this church at Ephesus is like you. You know the difference between good and evil, but your love for Christ has waned since your earlier profession. Your heart has grown hard and calloused and you’ve backslidden from Christ. Jesus is warning them, and us, not to presume that the way they used to live is good enough to get them into heaven. The mark of a true Christian isn’t a onetime profession of faith, it’s that you continue to believe. It’s not a onetime repentance and you’re done, it’s a continued repentance. Jesus is urging them to repent and return to Him, lest He take away their lampstand and turn them over to the hardness of their hearts.
Where do you stand today Christian? Do you have a hard, impenitent heart? Are you resting your hope of salvation on a “decision” you made years ago, while there is no evidence that you are truly saved? Jesus is calling you to repentance. He is calling you to return to your first love, your former works before it’s too late. Do not despise the chastening of the Lord.
