Octavius Winslow, one of the foremost English pastors of the 19thcentury, traces several characteristics of declining love so that we may identify them and deal with them before they grow worse in our lives and churches. The problems are:
1) God becoming less an object of fervent desire, holy delight, and frequent contemplation.
2) Loss of that sweet confidence and simple trust of a child before God.
3) Hard thoughts of God in some of His dealings.
4) Duty rather than privilege in spiritual exercises.
5) A less tender walk with God (that is to say, less trembling at the thought of offending Him, and so lighter views of sin).
6) Christ becoming less glorious to the eye and less precious to the heart.
7) Love to Christ’s people starting to decay.
8) Our interest in the advancement and prosperity of Christ’s cause beginning to wane.
(Octavious Winslow; Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul; chapter 2)These 8 characteristics can be measured against the individual Christian’s walk and they can, and should, be measured against the practice of each and every church.
In Revelation 2:1-7 Jesus compliments the church at Ephesus in a handful of areas
including that they were patient, were working hard, they had acted swiftly to deal with evil, they had rejected the deeds of a heretical sect who antagonized both them and the church at Pergamos, and this Ephesian church otherwise labored intensely for the Lord’s namesake. But then Jesus drops the hammer on them in vs. 4 saying “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”The list of compliments hardly seems to matter after the words given in verse 4. Suddenly the perspective changes and the Ephesian church can only hang their heads in shame.
In verse 5 the Lord offers to them the solution. He says “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent.” To remove their “lampstand” means he would take away their ability to give off light and shine. Any church that has lost its ability to shine is no longer effective. It may continue to function as an organization, refer to itself as a church, and do many “church-like” activities, but in the estimation of the Lord Jesus Christ it no longer is what it purports to be – a properly functioning New Testament church. I fear in these days, we find an overwhelming number of churches not operating as true New Testament churches because the main thing ceased to be the main thing long ago. In its place the highest good became striving to maintain the organization, and grow it when and where possible.
The fundamentals are the things we should know the best. It is true in sports; it is true in life; it is true in the Christian life. The simple, basic fundamentals such as prayer, Scripture reading, church attendance, sharing our faith, etc. are the most important parts of all. If we become lax in those areas it quickly leads to our drifting from our first love – Christ. Further, if we do love Christ greatly, a failure to be disciplined in the fundamentals will quickly lead us adrift from loving the Lord Jesus as our first love. We must consciously strive to love, practice love, and continually reassess whether or not Jesus Christ remains our first love.
In Christ,
Dr. Allen Raynor, Pastor
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