7 churches 7 lessons; the church exposed but are you listening. #1

Shalom brothers & sister.

I felt that I should share with you about the message to the seven churches in the book of Revelation from chapter 2 to 3. And the critical lessons that we should learn from these letters. As a matter of fact the massage of these letters was not confined only to those church, but it is a message to all churches and all christian's, anywhere and at any time. Just as it is to other scriptures in the bible.

The first chapter gives us the source of the revelation and its message (God & Christ), second it gives us the recipients of the message (the church/believers). The it give us the time frame of the events to be revealed has to when the will take place (it was present and the future). It also gives us the seer (apostle John).

The present things where about the condition of the church. What Christ has observed in his church and his verdict. The future things where about the tribulations, end of the world and final judgement. But has the scripture say God's judgement always begin in his own house. Thus he deals with his church first, he tells her about her condition and what judgement will come to her if she fails to change her ways. And what would be the reward if his word will be obeyed. It is a message to the church (every where) of God as whole but also to all individual christian's.

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God gives us a chance to make amends, before he judges the world. If we will not hearken to his voice we will share the judgement of the world. The one who gave revelation to John as the right, the power, the authority and the responsibility to execute judgement on the sinners but also to forgive sins and to reward the righteous.

Lets begin with the first letter to the first church, which is Ephesus. Rev 2:1-8

Outwardly Ephesus church appeared to be a perfect church, you can say a model church or christian. Verses 2-3 gives the impression I have just mentioned;

          2-3 “I see what you’ve done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can’t stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders. I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out.

(The message bible)

In a nutshell I will discuss each of those praises they received;

• they were super busy, the worked hard for God. Everyone was doing something for God, laziness was not their sin. The church was full of individual and collective projects. And all these projects were successful. This was an interesting church.

Those who are part of the leadership team at church, know how much hard it is to motivate people to attending bible studies, leave alone participating in other various church projects. But this was so with the Ephesus church, leaders of the Ephesus church hard a walk in the garden when it comes to get the church and individuals into the service of the kingdom. Which leader of the church today will not wish to find himself in such a church. A church self motivated to serve.

Second quality was endurance. These people endured a lot in their service to God, nothing could stop them. In their commitment to God also they endured so much too. And its true for the quality of hard work to flourish endurance is necessary. Endurance is an important quality to all of us as christians and especially in this quick fixes generation. It is not easy to develop this quality but it is necessary to develop it. To live a christian life and a spiritual life, patience is a paramount. People who are patient are considered wise most of the time. They give time and space to people, things and themselves to gain a better view of issues. Most of the time they try to make a right judgement of issues. Now that was the Ephesus church.

• Third quality, they were orthodox both in their theology and in their practise. They did not compromise with wicked people and false apostles. It was not a safe heaven for a double standard living, people here were serious about their faith and theology. It was a step up or step out situation. What they were doing it was biblical, because the bible says;
  Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world
  1john 4:1

We ought to do the same, especial in these days where people profess faith but they live the opposite of faith. We have so many self called apostles but their nothing more than ministers of gains, they do what they do for their own honor and gains. They use people and abuse God's word. Christ said we will know them by their fruits, though they come in sheep clothing but inside their ferocious wolves. Their appetite will betray them, instead of eating grass they will go sheep because a sheep eats grass but a wolf eats meat. It was good the Ephesus church did not fall a prey to such false apostles.

They were busy serving and guarding their faith, with such busyness you would expect fatigue to set in, but nope. The endured opposition, they fought false apostles, they hate false teachings and they served God very hard. There was no sign of fatigue, they looked perfect.

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But something dangerous more than fatigue was destroying all the positive things they had been doing. Ephesus church had fallen from the very foundation of their service, endurance and orthodox, which is love. Love for God and for man. Love should be the motivation, the biggest ministry of all is love. God accepts love this is a divine standard, it may be hard to understand it but it is the reality. Without love no work is enough. Work cannot replace love neither is theological orthodox or endurance.

It looks like they did begin with love, but somewhere along the road, they just did things because they were used with doing what they were doing.

God is love, his law is built on love, his work of redemption was built on love, our love to him must involve man, so our services to him cannot built on anything else apart from love. Friends love is the engine. Lets not deceive ourselves without love we are fallen in danger of loosing the rewards for our services to God. Only love services the will of God. This is important to learn.

Here are scripture which can help see how much love is vital
1 John 4:20
1 Corinthians 13:1- 14:1

Thank you for taking time to read my post
Bless you.

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