#34 On the Nature of God: He knows about His Churches: Ephesus

How many organizations do you belong to? Few? A lot? A Church? The Lion’s Club?  Looking to join more? Do you know all about each of them? Are they conservative minded? Liberal minded? Does it really matter? Usually, we can state much about the organizations to which we belong.

What do you know about the congregation you belong to? Are there members who need encouraging? Classes to teach? What does God know about the congregation? Is it His nature to keep up with what is happening in each congregation and to each of us? Does He know if interest is waning? Are the teachers teaching the truth? Is it His nature to know if error is being taught?

The second and third chapters of the book of Revelation show that it is the nature of God to know about every congregation. John lists seven congregations and what God has to say to each through His Spirit-inspired word.

For example, Ephesus is the first church addressed, Revelation 2:1-6:

““To the angel of the church in Ephesus “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 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. 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. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

Note that Jesus begins with “I know your works…” (This introductory phase is used for five of the seven churches addressed in these two chapters. For the other two churches, Jesus begins with “I know your tribulation and your poverty…” and “I know where you dwell…”) What this means is that it is the nature of Jesus to know all about the churches. Likewise, He surely knows all about His churches today.

To Ephesus, Jesus speaks through the writings of the Apostle John and makes three points. 1) He knows and commends their careful adherence to what had been taught about faithful apostles and their continuing to endure despite persecution and fake apostles. 2) Jesus then points out their downfall. In spite of all the good things that had happened, they had abandoned their first love. No doubt, this decrease in love is rooted in a lesser love of God and their fellow Christians. This means they had lost some of their intensity of love and had drifted into a state of love lethargy. We might say that they are now ‘going through the motions.’ 3) Jesus provides the solution. They must repent and return to the first state of works and the love that they had abandoned. Their current lesser love was not pleasing to Jesus.

The lesson to us is twofold. It is the nature of God to know exactly how much we love Him and what work we do. And we must love Him intensly all the time and not have times when we do little or nothing.

It is the nature of God to know about our spiritual state and through the Spirit-inspired word urge us to repent of slack activity and return to the intense love we should have exhibited at conversion.

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