#Revelation #EndTimes
Rev 2:1-7 "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: 'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. "'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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
The progression of drifting away from Absolute Love is subtle and often gradual. We go from loving God first and foremost, to loving the benefits of walking in the path of God as a means of self exaltation, to feeling sorry for ourselves in being misunderstood and all the way to being lukewarm, complacent, faith having not even an inkling of vibrancy.
David Wells calls this progression, in part, a movement from Agape faith to Eros faith!
" By contrast in Agape faith, God is not loved simply for the benefits that flow from that loving such as forgiveness of sins. He is loved for what he is in himself. If Eros loves the sacred because it is worth doing, Agape, by contrast, loves God without ulterior motives, Agape surrenders, Eros grasps, Agape loves simply and only because it should, because God is most lovable. This Agape faith loves God because it is the consequence of His Agape and in his love there is no calculation." David Wells
Above All Earthly Pow'rs Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing p 160 2005
There may be a sense of love of God left. Is it the first sense of love? Loving because God is intimately lovable in a sense that God is above all earthly treasures and powers.
Rev 2:1-7 "To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: 'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. "'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. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
The progression of drifting away from Absolute Love is subtle and often gradual. We go from loving God first and foremost, to loving the benefits of walking in the path of God as a means of self exaltation, to feeling sorry for ourselves in being misunderstood and all the way to being lukewarm, complacent, faith having not even an inkling of vibrancy.
David Wells calls this progression, in part, a movement from Agape faith to Eros faith!
" By contrast in Agape faith, God is not loved simply for the benefits that flow from that loving such as forgiveness of sins. He is loved for what he is in himself. If Eros loves the sacred because it is worth doing, Agape, by contrast, loves God without ulterior motives, Agape surrenders, Eros grasps, Agape loves simply and only because it should, because God is most lovable. This Agape faith loves God because it is the consequence of His Agape and in his love there is no calculation." David Wells
Above All Earthly Pow'rs Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing p 160 2005
There may be a sense of love of God left. Is it the first sense of love? Loving because God is intimately lovable in a sense that God is above all earthly treasures and powers.
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