Remodeling Love

"To the angel of the church in Ephesus write… "'I know your works … I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Rev. 2:1-4

Lately, God has been reshaping my heart so I may be more effective in building His church, i.e., God’s people. He’s accomplishing this task by showing me this passage in various contexts.

God has shown me through the message to Ephesus that He is the great architect of the church. We have to follow the blueprint for His people and church, or the building just won’t work. I remember when a friend of mine made some late changes to the house he was having built. They didn’t think about moving a light switch in the attic plan, so you had to walk the length of a dark room before you could turn on the light. The workers followed the plan, but it wasn’t complete in its design. It was a bad plan. We can trust that God will always give us a plan that will accomplish what He desires. It may not always look successful in our eyes, but it is His perfect design.

Similarly, His church must follow His building plans, or it all gets messed up. Can you imagine a house built by builders who each do what they think the blueprints should say rather than what it dictates? The house would look like an amusement park mad house! Such is the state of God’s people, and consequently the church, when we don’t follow God’s blueprint for our lives.

So what is God’s blueprint for the church? Well, I think it’s safe to say that we will always be in tension with those around us. Indeed, God would have never confronted the Ephesians with these words if conflict was always bad. Sometimes you have to do demolition before you can remodel. Sometimes you have to dismantle a false belief to help someone see the truth. Our problem is that we often just leave it at that -- all destruction and no reconstruction. The purpose or focus of remodeling a house, however, is not simply to tear stuff up. The goal is to remove the things that are a hindrance, so we can build something better.

So confrontation keeps bad people from taking advantage of others and corrects us when we don’t realize we’re going astray by removing hindrances from our lives. The choice, therefore, is not an either/or between conflict and peace. Sometimes we have to confront others or separate ourselves from those who call themselves God’s people but are not. Other times we need to put aside the silly things that divide us for the sake of the unity of our brothers or the church. But how do we know the difference?

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. Rev. 2:5

In this passage the angel warned Ephesus that they had lost their first love. But what was this love suppose to be? Certainly they had lost their love for people. But the love for people is not our first love. Loving people is only a symptom of a greater love. The Ephesians had lost their first love for God.

God has created us to display His glory through our enjoyment of Him. We incur the maximum amount of peace and joy with God and people when we make God the focus of our lives.

Spurgeon once stated “if any man pleases God, he does that which conduces most to his own temporal and eternal welfare.”¹ The most obvious truth seen in Revelation is that we enjoy God when we escape His wrath and correction by obeying him. Therefore, the most beneficial thing we can do for ourselves is to remember and follow Christ’s example of loving God.

Fellowshipping with God is like being around those special people in your life. You can’t help but be encouraged and strengthened when they are in your life. You can’t help but want to be around them and become like them. The more you focus on something, the more you’ll start looking like it. After a while people will want to be around you, because you’ve taken on your special person’s attractive traits. The only difference here is that God is greater than the most inspirational person you have ever known. People will naturally be attracted to the hope you exude when you’re focused on the God who is our great hope. They will find hope when you look to the one who is the ultimate Hope Giver.

Conversely, Satan’s great plan is to get us sidetracked from our purpose by shifting our eyes off of the solution. And we loose the message of hope when we focus on the problem instead of the solution. If you focus on the problem, you eventually begin to look like the problem. If you focus on always being right and tearing people down, you become destructive. If this is true, why would anyone want to agree with a contentious person even if he or she is right? Deep down, the other person is thinking, “I will become like him if I focus on what he is focusing on.” Who wants to focus on a jerk and, consequently, become one? I certainly do not. The real choice is between restoration and condemnation. Too many times we get focused on tearing down someone else’s belief rather than building a right faith. You have to have a blueprint and idea before you can expect someone to build what you envision. Then you have to model, before you can remodel. The more you focus your life on the God, who is our solution, the more you begin to look like the solution. We become like God when we stare at Him and glance at the problem.

Prayer: Forgive me for loving battle more than peace. Forgive me for loving destruction more than encouragement. Deliver me from an attitude that is quick to be defensive and fight.

^{1Spurgeon, C.H., The New Park Street Pulpit, December 14, 1856, http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0107.htm}

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