America's Lost Legacy (Part 5)

A Church with Passion (Part One)

God told the church at Ephesus that they had left their first love. They were once hot for God. They were once on fire for Him. They had great zeal and great fervor for Him, but now, they’ve cooled. He encouraged them to return to their first love. When church members returns to the zeal and enthusiasm they once had for their Lord, they will again be able to positively affect and influence their families for the Kingdom. Godly children become godly adults who will use godly wisdom to affect positive change in their families, on their jobs, in their churches, in their communities, and in their nation.

When the Church returns to her first love, she, too, will be able to affect positive change. Jesus told the church at Ephesus to remember from whence she fell. She was to remember the love and zeal she once had. She was to remember the power and strength she once had. She was to remember the favor of God she once had. Once she remembers where she fell from, she is to repent and go back to it. To repent means to die to a sin or a sinful way of life. For what does she have to repent? She is to repent of allowing worldliness to enter into her. She is to repent for compromising with the world. She is to repent for her disobedience to the commands of Christ. She is to repent for her idolatries. The church at Ephesus was to repent and die to the life she was now living, the sins she was not committing, and to return to God. She was to turn her back on what she was now doing and return to her zeal and her passion for her first (and only) Love.

To those churches that do not repent, He “will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place.” That means that He will remove His blessing from her. He will write Ichabod on her. He may even kill off her members or just let the church die off through natural attrition. He may even give them over to a strong delusion that they may believe the lies of false teachers. If a church repents of growing cold towards Jesus, then He will restore her. He told the Ephesian church, “‘To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.’” He would bless those who repent with eternal life.