We continue today with conclusion to the 1st letter to the Church of Ephesus. Last post we heard about losing focus on our first love, our Lord Jesus. How if that goes on for long in a church, Jesus will remove that churchs Lampstand. As sad as that is, we do have an opportunity to get it back and re-focus on the most important thing in our human existence, Jesus! The ways to come back from a love that has all but disappeared, through the faithfulness of the Lord are as follows: 1. REMEMBER-Remember the height from which you have fallen. Look back. Recall how you felt and how you responded when you first came to Jesus. Re-experience it in your mind that sense of joy and wonder and closeness you felt when you first gave yourself to Him. Re-experience that sense of inner support and strength that came to you in times of pressure and trouble. Recall the eagerness with which you went to the Lord in prayer. THINK BACK! LOOK BACK! REMEMBER!!! 2. REPENT-Change your mind; change your life. Change your mind about what has taken the place of Jesus in your life. If you do, your life will take on new meaning and fresh power from God as you replace your old prideful, self-centered motivation with a new, joyful Christ-centered motivation. Put Jesus back into the center of all you are and do. Allow the joy of your salvation and your amazement over Gods love to permeate in every thing you do. CHANGE YOUR MIND-REPENT. 3. RETURN-Do the things you did at first, says our Lord Jesus. What things? Return to our Bibles, eagerly absorbing its truth as we pray to God continually, trusting Him with all the issues of our lives. I need to postpone the posts in the study for about two weeks, as I am still in Ohio helping Michelle with the kids while Brad is on various business trips. I arrive back in California on 1/31 and will be able to concentrate more with whats coming up in the study. Also, I am going to change the format Im using with the seven churches. More Bible, less commentary. This is taking quite a while and I really want to move into the parts of this Book that seem hard to comprehend. But I will list by church important details about how Jesus identifies Himself with each church, what He does and doesnt like about each church, and the great promises to Anyone WHO IS WILLING to HEAR and LISTEN to the Spirit and UNDERSTAND what the Spirit is saying to the churches. This implies we can understand if we are willing. Just a little taste of the promises, here is the one to the church of Ephesus: Everyone who is victorious (overcomes by placing Him back into the position of having Him as our first love), I will give the right to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the Paradise of God. That first Tree of Life mentioned in the Garden of Eden, the very beginning and again mentioned at the very end of the Bible, Revelation, Chapter 22. Full circle! It will appear as we will find out when we get to Chapter 22 with the promised New Heavens and New Earth, in the midst of the New Jerusalem. I LOVE NEW!!! This Tree is a symbol of the Lord Jesus. He feeds us and sustains us, and we draw our strength from Him. To receive again the wonder of the Lord, REMEMBER, REPENT and RETURN!!! See you in a few weeks! On Brads last business trip, Michelle, kiddos and Grammy are all traveling on January 31st to California. The Ohio Neal family will be there through February 6. During their trip, our baby boy Connor will be dedicated to the Lord at the 10:30 service on February 2. One of the best things about this trip, Michelle is surprising Kristian who wont know about this trip until we pick her up on Friday from school on the way to the airport!!! Not to mention, we are going to spend a couple of days at Disneyland. Cant wait to see her face!!! Please pray for traveling mercy for all of us as we will have a toddler and baby on the airplane!!!
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 19:31:17 +0000
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