Letters to the Seven Churches: Study for LentПримерок

Examine Your Heart: The Church at Ephesus

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Who or what do you find yourself thinking, dreaming, or worrying about?

Before Ebenezer Scrooge became an example of miserliness, he was in love with and engaged to a beautiful woman. Few of us, though, actually remember that part of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Our memory of the story usually revolves around loathing the man he was at first, and rejoicing when his heart changes. Despite the happy ending, there is loss that he cannot regain.

When the first spirit transports him to his past, we see Scrooge as a young boy in boarding school, lonely and bookish. Later, as an apprentice to the merry Fezziwig, we see a happier Scrooge, making friends and becoming engaged to the lovely Belle. A few years later, after starting his career, he and Belle have a fateful meeting on a park bench. She releases Scrooge from their engagement because, as she puts it, “Another idol has displaced me.” Scrooge’s love for her had grown cold, squeezed out by his love for money. Belle refuses to marry a man who is merely going through the motions; she ends their meeting with a fateful wish: “May you be happy in the life you have chosen.” Scrooge remains alone.

At this point, Ebenezer Scrooge begs to be taken back, but the Spirit has one more shadow to show him. This time, he is transported to a lively living room. A married Belle sits with her eldest daughter, as her large brood of kids play around her. Her husband returns home and mentions that he has seen an old friend of Belle’s that day. She correctly guesses Mr. Scrooge, and he paints a sad picture of Scrooge working alone in his office as his partner, Marley, is on the brink of death. Belle’s husband describes Scrooge as “Quite alone in the world.” This last scene is more than Scrooge can bear and he begs to be returned to his bedroom, overwhelmed by the loss of his first love.

In Revelation 2, Jesus writes a letter to the Ephesian church, praising them for their hard work, but rebuking them for forsaking their first love for Christ and His kingdom. Unlike Scrooge, they have an opportunity to regain this love if they follow Jesus’ instructions.

Personal Reflection

Ephesus was the commercial and cultural capital of the region of Asia Minor, as well as a hub of Christian activity. The New Testament tells us more about the history of this church than any other. Paul planted it and labored there at length, as did Timothy, Aquila, Priscilla and Apollos. Clearly, the Ephesian church was an important and vital one.                

1. In Christ’s letter to the Ephesians, He praised them for their hard work and perseverance, yet also rebuked them for losing their first love. How is it possible for both of these to be true at the same time? Identify an example from your own life when you were diligently working on something you no longer really cared about.
   
   • What number from 1% to 100% do you think best represents your “hard work and perseverance” for Christ and His Kingdom?
   
   • What number from 1% to 100% do you think best represents your intimacy with and love for Christ?            
2. Whatever fills our thoughts reveals what we most care about. Take an inventory of your thought life. Where does your mind go when it is free to wander?
   
   • What do your thoughts reveal about what you love?            
3. Think back to a time when you were first in love. What was it like? What did you feel? What did you do? What happened to that relationship?
   
   • Have you ever experienced that kind of enthusiasm in your relationship with Jesus? If so, how did it affect you?            
4. Name the instructions Jesus gives the Ephesians to regain their first love.
   
   • What would it look like for you to apply these instructions in your relationship with Christ?

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Discuss  

• What is something you want to remember from the video?   
• How does what you have learned encourage you to persevere in your relationship with God?

Take Away

Although A Christmas Carol tells a painful story, it ends redemptively. The spirits who visit Scrooge accomplish what they intended: he saw his failings, repented, and set about to live the rest of his life a new man. He became a second father to Tiny Tim and “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew…” So, if he did not regain the romantic love that he lost, Ebenezer Scrooge more than made up for this by loving everyone in his life well and gaining forgiveness from those he had wronged.

We also have the chance to repent. Examining our hearts is an important first step.        

How does the story of Scrooge and Christ’s letter to the church at Ephesus make you want to examine your heart more closely?

In the final line of the letter to the Ephesians, Jesus promises: To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Rev. 2:7) Adam and Eve did not have the right to eat from the tree of life, and they were banished from the Garden of Eden, in part so neither they nor their descendants would eat from it. But to those who love Him, Jesus gives the right to eat of this very tree. Wrap your mind around that truth.

In Revelation 2:1, Jesus is described as sovereign over His angels (“[holding] the seven stars in his right hand”) and as being among His churches, tending to them (“walking among the seven golden lampstands”). He is near you. He loves you. The question is do you love Him?         

• What is one thing you want to remember from this devotional?    
• What does this mean for your life this week?

— Susan Rogers Davis