Revelation 2:4
4 Nevertheless[alla] I have[echo] somewhat
against[kata] thee,[sou] because[hoti] thou hast left[aphiemi] thy[sou] first[protos] love.[agape] KJV-Interlinear
4 'But I have this against you,
that you have left your first love. NASB
Although, through the letters of Paul we learned of
the initial love that the Ephesians originally demonstrated, they have waned in
their love, and their spiritual lives had changed from one of obedience to God
and His mandates, to one of mechanical and shallow and superficial mimicking of
spiritual behavior.
How do we know this? Because God has a charge
against them.Any charge from God
is sin related, or anti-truth related.
That is the only time that God takes charge against anything.
Second, they ‘left,’ departed, went away, from their
first habit.
Third, they left their ‘agape.’ ‘Agape’ is a reference to the detailed
principles, mandates, precepts of Bible doctrine.
As in today’s society, there are many Christians,
but most do not obey Gods commands.They
obey their own ‘idea’ of Gods commands, but their obedience is to their
emotions, to the things that are convenient to them, and not to the daily grind
of scriptural study.A daily study is too
boring, too inconvenient, too tedious, not interesting, not attention getting,
not fun, it is not working for Jesus as they believe that they should be doing.
And therefore the Ephesians lost their first love, adherence
to Gods will, and started down the path of adherence to
their own will.
After all, shouldn’t God accept our works as being
just as good as His?Especially
if we are sincere, especially if we use all of the right language, especially if
we have good intentions?
And the answer to that is, ‘No.’
Any departure from Gods truth to mans good
intentions, is pursuing the path of lies, of distractions, of setting the bad
example, of saying to those who observe your behavior, that a Christian can do anything
so long as it is sincere, or of good intentions. Thus teaching lies, and setting others on a
course of bad habits, and failure in their spiritual life. ‘Oh,’ but you say, ‘I just want to do good things
for Jesus.’When if
fact you are pursuing a hate of Jesus, by being disobedient. When in fact you are only doing what you do,
in order to gain some attention for yourself.
All works done in truth, work for Christ. All works done outside of truth,
are against Christ.
If you broadcast random or arbitrary quotations, or
phrases for attention (that is the real approbation behind them), or random or
arbitrary or inconsistent study habits generating inconsistent or invalid
conclusions, then you are thinking of self only. If you do the things that do not comply with
Gods mandates, then you are thinking of self only.
Real truth resides within the
soul, not in external attention getting or emotional feel good
expressions.To do other than Gods will, means that you fall onto
Gods bad list, thinking all the while that you are doing His will.
And even worse than that, when you are called on
your behavior, you probably will tend to ignore the correction, making your
transgression even worse through disregard.
Thus God establishes the real depth of your disobedience.
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