Saying All The Right Things

Ever walk into a church with all of the right doctrines, ministries, associations and trappings.  From the outside everything looks like it is right where it is supposed to be – sounds like the way a lot of people are when they go to church.  An outward conformity to a list of rules or a set of principles – but missing the heart.  It is symptomatic of our society.  We all want to be accept and to excel in the eyes of others.

This all came to mind today when I visited a church out here in California.  It was a reformed theology church.  Their focus above the entrance – the five SOLAS – Faith Alone, Grace Alone, Scripture Alone, Christ Alone, the Glory of God Alone.  Very true thing, very good things, this is the way they wanted to be known.  But it appeared to me in my short visit that somewhere in the process they had lost their heart.

God speaks of this in Revelation 2:1-7.  The church of Ephesus had a lot of things going for them:  good deeds, hatred of false teachers, perseverance for the things of Christ, but they lost something in the process.  It is something all of us can lose sight of, it slips away so quietly and easily while in our minds we are doing the work of Christ.

“They Lost Their First Love”

So what are we to do?  Jesus says to them remember where you came from, who you were when Christ saved you, repent and go back to the basics of loving Christ, spending time in the word getting to know Him, slowing down enough to listen to Him.  Peter sums it up this way in 2 Peter 1:1-15:  Our lives start with the foundation of faith and in all things that we do it is to look like love.  When we forget to love God with everything we have and to love others better than ourselves we have misrepresented God and the Gospel. 

So where are you at in your walk?  Does your life look like love?  Do you need to repent and go back to the basics?

Think about it.  I know I am.  Examine yourself before God does it for you. 

Does your life look like love – the love of God?

sherman