Revelation 2:4
But I have this against you: You have
abandoned the love you had at first.
This charge was
directed at the church at Ephesus. It is hard to imagine a church that had more going for it on the front end than the one in Ephesus. They were gathered together and taught by a man who had met Jesus face to face. Their church planter literally wrote the book on "how to build a church." Yet years later, Jesus told
John to warn the Ephesians to repent of having lost their first
love. If it can happen in Ephesus, it can happen at Candeo.
Churches
are built on love: the love of Jesus and the love of our neighbors.Sound
familiar? When people hear the Good News of Jesus and respond with
repentance and belief, churches are born.
These people then begin telling their neighbors, their co-workers, and their
family members about Jesus and God adds to their numbers. This is how a church grows.
Candeo
must not grow out of these things. We
cannot use these principles to build a church and then abandon them for programs to
manage a church. Churches are sustained
by the same means by which they are built. But when
disciples stop discipling, the church becomes just another club and when we try to protect the product of our
hard work as though the church was ours, we begin to lose our first love. It's not our church. Candeo belongs to God.
The
church at Ephesus was commanded to repent and go back to doing what they did at
first. Everything Candeo is doing right now is our "at first" - at least for now. Observe what is happening here and
now. Continue and persevere in it. Resist the urge to graduate past it.
Love God. Love people.
Make disciples.
