Monday, March April 5: Revelation 2- What would Jesus write to me?

A Little Background on Revelation

The author of Revelation identifies himself as John, likely the same John who authored the fourth gospel. The book was written during a time of persecution. The church is anxiously awaiting Christ's return. The book is written to encourage the believers to stand firm. God is in control and Christ is coming again. Christ alone has the authority to judge the earth, remake it, and rule it in righteousness. Revelation consists of a series of revelations/visions given to John by God.

 

 

I found myself wondering as I read God’s letters to these 4 churches, what would I read if Jesus wrote a letter to me? Then I wondered which of these letters would be closest to what He would write me? Your answer might be different than mine. If so, follow where God leads you in your devotional time today. I kept circling back to the letter to Ephesus.

Ephesus comes across as a faithful church who studied the scriptures, divided error from truth correctly and made sure that people who taught error were not tolerated. This is often hard, exacting work. It is not pleasant to confront error while standing for truth and while doing so, ones’ life can become callused. Engaging in the rigors of dividing truth from error, a person can loose sight of the people with whom you are speaking/arguing/confronting.

Jesus, not so gently reminds me of calluses … You have forsaken your first love. … Repent and do the things you did at first (4-5). That word love leapt out of the sentence. My first love was Jesus. I have to be careful that I don’t replace my love for Jesus with a love/desire to be right.

Do what you did at first… two thoughts came to mind. First, embrace Jesus. When I first become a believer, I couldn’t get enough of Jesus and His Word. I treasured times to read and pray and walk with Jesus. Secondly, because I was so new to following Jesus, my life was pock-marked with lots of sin. I was unrefined and so were my friends. However, rather than being repulsed by their sin, I just wanted them to meet Jesus. As my life has grown more ‘Christ-like’ and refined (which is a good thing), my ability to handle sin in others has shrunk. This I am afraid is not good because I could be giving off an air of being ‘better-than-you’and this takes me back to the first-love piece Jesus mentioned earlier.

I believe it was in John, chapter 1, where Jesus is described as full of “grace and truth.” I need the balance of both grace and truth. It seems quite possibly I have grown in truth but allowed grace to atrophy. It is time for me to pray…

O, God, help me balance grace and truth. To balance intolerance for error and wickedness with love… Your kind of love. Amen.