You have forsaken your first love.
—Revelation 2:4
That was a fine church in Ephesus.
In Paul’s letters to churches he usually pinpointed flaws in their fellowship that needed to be corrected.
There’s not a single line about such a flaw in his letter to the church in Ephesus.
And in a later letter to that church—Rev. 2:1-7—the Lord complimented them for their good qualities.
But then came this jolting sentence: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”
What was once a fine church in Ephesus is no more. It died centuries ago … when love died.
The landscape has been littered ever since with the ruins of churches where love has been lost.
Our lives are shaped by what we love—
and by what we hate.