What God Wants in Our Repentance
It's love.
God is looking for our love. Not our good deeds and great programs first. Not our reputation and doctrinal foundations first. Those are all of importance, but second to the great desire of God for His people.... LOVE. How interesting that the FIRST letter of the 7 churches addressed is a call to repentance and that repentance is not from dead works of sin, but that of lost love:
Revelation 2:4–5 (ESV) But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 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.
The Ephesian church was the home of John the Apostle and possibly Mary (the Mother of Jesus). They had two immense witnesses to speak straight to their heart. For all their projects and proper religious observance, they had missed the most important reality of what God has called us to, a love relationship with Him.
But what does it mean to "Do the works you did at first?" What are the works of "first love?"
Paul wrote to the Ephesians mentioning the term "love" some 20 times. It was the main point of Paul's prayer for these believers:
Ephesians 3:14–19 (ESV) For this reason I bow my knees before the Father... so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
God is looking for our love. Not our good deeds and great programs first. Not our reputation and doctrinal foundations first. Those are all of importance, but second to the great desire of God for His people.... LOVE. How interesting that the FIRST letter of the 7 churches addressed is a call to repentance and that repentance is not from dead works of sin, but that of lost love:
Revelation 2:4–5 (ESV) But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 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.
The Ephesian church was the home of John the Apostle and possibly Mary (the Mother of Jesus). They had two immense witnesses to speak straight to their heart. For all their projects and proper religious observance, they had missed the most important reality of what God has called us to, a love relationship with Him.
But what does it mean to "Do the works you did at first?" What are the works of "first love?"
Paul wrote to the Ephesians mentioning the term "love" some 20 times. It was the main point of Paul's prayer for these believers:
Ephesians 3:14–19 (ESV) For this reason I bow my knees before the Father... so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
John would write as well to believers scattered throughout Asia:
1 John 4:19 (ESV) We love because he first loved us.
We get back to our first things when we get back to a proper picture of the Love of God for us. When we realize He spared nothing in willing to Love us though we had nothing to offer him. "For God so loved the world..."
A relationship of love requires time together as well... to shut out the doing and start living in light of the presence of one another. God desires us to draw close to Him (James 4:8). He looks to draw us close and to know us intimately.
The main point of repentance in God's view for us is to stay close to Him in love.
Amen.
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