‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
The first time I visited Edinburgh, I was astonished by the history of that city. From castles to churches, I was amazed by it all. However, what struck me in my conversations with the residents of that city was how they had become so accustomed to the sights and history that surrounded them, that no one stopped to ponder the beauty that surrounded where they were living.
In Revelation 2:4, the apostle John is writing a letter to seven churches, the first of which was in Ephesus. This was a church that had a great pedigree; good founders and theology. Yet there was a problem; they had abandoned their first love.
Sadly, that love was a person. The person of our Lord Jesus Christ. This church was rich, it had a great heritage, but it was missing one thing, the most important thing: love for Christ. They had forgotten Christ and what he did for them on the cross.
As we train men at the Berea Seminary, we too can be like the church in Ephesus. Even though we should be thankful for our orthodoxy, it must never become dead. We do not worship books, nor doctrines; we worship a person, the God made flesh, the one who ransomed us from the dead, Jesus Christ.
Examine and ask yourself, am I loving Christ the same way I did when I was first saved? Perhaps you are failing at this, but the antidote for this is simple: repent and believe by remembering who we were before we were saved, and letting our love for Christ be borne out of an appreciation for what he has done for us on the cross
