Obedience that is not fully pleasing to God

In our prosperity did we forget our God? In our prosperity are we serving other
gods like self, job, wealth, status?

Revelation 2:4, NIV: Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love
you had at first. Jesus warned the church at Ephesus that they had left their first love.
That is always the first step backwards. Not quite as passionate as you once
were. Your heart drawn away and tempted by other things.

Revelation 2:5, NIV: Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the
things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your
lampstand from its place. Jesus calls upon the church at Ephesus to remember the love from which it had
fallen. Their commitment to truth was a good thing, but unless it is motivated
by love, that obedience is not fully pleasing to God.

Jesus commanded the church at Ephesus to repent. The Ephesian believers
needed to reverse their spiritual decline and serve Him as they did when the
church began. A failure to heed Jesus’ command would bring swift punishment.
The church would not continue to exist as a witness for Jesus. In your prosperity you no longer need to trust in the Lord for your daily bread. Perhaps you no longer pause to thank God for your food.
Maybe your children no longer ask God to bless the hands that prepared the
food as they pour their breakfast out of a box. It is now a rare occasion when you attend church or pay attention to the worship even in other media platforms. These are all warning signs that you have left your first love.

Jesus is telling us today the same message that He gave to the Ephesian Church
“Repent and do the things you did at first”. Did you ever wondered why your children have no interest in the things of God, and your grandchildren never even go to Sunday school and care nothing about
Jesus? Be sure to tell your children what the Lord has done, but then encourage them
to have their own personal experiences with God’s love and power.

We must make our second and third generations a generation that experiences
the miraculous works of God in their own lives.
In Lamentations chapter 3: we read, “It is the LORD’S mercies that we are not
consumed, because his compassions they fail not. They are new every morning:
great is thy faithfulness.” May God help us to seek a fresh work of God’s love in our life each and every
morning.

Kurian Varghese