Another Turning Point
" But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. " - Revelation 2:4-5 I came across this verse a couple days ago and man, it hit me hard because it relates with me and where I'm at right now. Here, Jesus is speaking to the church in Ephesus where the Gospel was pervasive and powerful in the culture following Paul's mission there. At this point, they were continuing to endure pain and fight for sound doctrine. However, as Jesus says here, they have abandoned their first love. As Ephesus grew in their understanding of doctrine, they fell away from the state they were in at first which sparked their transformation. As Matt Chandler says in The Explicit Gospel , "They had the appearance of godliness but denied the power therein to produce radical affection for Jesus, radical repentance from sin, and radical love for a lost world" (185)...