SEVENSample

TITLE: Burn

Theme: Discipleship and Devotion to Christ

Song & Lyric: Burn: “You have made my heart Your home, loved me with a perfect love,

but still I wander, still I roam God, help me burn for You 'til I'm really, truly, wholly Yours”

Scriptures:

• Revelation 2:1-7 (NIV)
• Luke 10:38-42 (NLT)
• Jeremiah 31:3 (NLT)

Devotional:

“You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” - Revelation 2:3-5a NIV

Jesus’ message to the church of Ephesus is profound and cautionary. He implores them to reflect, to ‘consider’ how far they have fallen and to repent. This is evidence of His great love for them, not the opposite. Christ longs that they would have a deep love for Him in their hearts. Many, if not all Christians can easily relate to the convicting admonition of Jesus in these verses. Consider the passage on Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42. Martha was consumed with doing many things for Jesus, yet Mary knew better—she had recognized the only thing that was truly important: Christ himself. Scripture teaches that God has loved us in this way: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3 NLT). As believers, we have come to recognize the perfect and unending love that Christ has for us. Yet, despite this profound truth, we can find ourselves in the exact same position as Martha or that of the church of Ephesus. It’s important to note that Jesus’ teaching to this church isn’t that all their good work is pointless, or that it should be completely disregarded. Jesus acknowledges their faithfulness to Him. But His correction comes by addressing their heart’s intention. It’s apparent this church had either lost love in their hearts for God or for others. But both of these are crucial as believers. The hard reality is, we can do things for God but with little or no love for Him in the process. Scripture teaches us to be quite different from this: to love the Lord in word and deed. To grow in our knowledge and wisdom of Him, yet to remain humbly dependent on His wisdom and grace for us. This is the not-so-secret truth of our faith: to behold Him, and to continue to. To see Christ, and to continue to want to. To become His through surrender, and to continually surrender our lives upon the altar of His all-consuming love.

Then we will pray, “You have made my heart Your home, loved me with a perfect love, but still I wander, still I roam. God, help me burn for You 'til I'm really, truly, wholly Yours”.