What church am I? Part 1

A Garland of Grace and a Crown of Beauty. Proverbs 4:9

For the last 2-3 weeks, the Lord has had me stirred up in the Book of Revelation. In particular the 7 churches. Some nights, we read over one of the church’s descriptions and talk about what it means.

If we were to be honest with ourselves, what church would we be a member of today? Honestly, many of us could say a combination of them either at the same time or different times in our lives.

• Ephesus: loyal church
• Smyrna: suffering church
• Pergamum: compromising church
• Thyatira: overly tolerant church
• Sardis: dead church
• Philadelphia: weak, but obedient church
• Laodicea: lukewarm, uncommitted church

To Ephesus: “I know all the things you do.

• your hard work
• your patient endurance
• refusal to tolerate evil people
• not fooled by false teachers
• patiently suffer for my name
• Never gives up

But I have this complaint against you.

• you don’t love me as you did at first
• you don’t love one another as you did at first

Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first…”

How easy is it to grow calloused against God? Memories of times where our set our hopes up for something but we didn’t see it when we wanted to or maybe still haven’t.

We love God, but we’ve taken more of a passenger seat or even a back seat on how much we TRUST God.

What do I mean by that… How has our culture taught us to say “Que sera , sera” which is: whatever will be, will be or in christian terms: “If it’s God’s will, it will happen.” We took the pressure off of us trusting God for things He has said, like healing for example.

Or what about just becoming complacent, the way we become with our own spouse or parents? We love them, but our demonstration of love is as big as a fire just barely staying lit. We trust so much that they just become part of our safe surrounding. No effort being brought forth.

And how about in regards to when Jesus referred to “your love for each other”.

I can personally say I have to watch this in my own life, when you get hurt or disappointed so many times by others, your love for them reduces like a protective wall.

Or what about those who are so morally different than you, that almost everything they stand for is evil-minded, so blinded by the culture of the world that you can’t stand them.

God calls us to guard our hearts against this act of weakened love! Why? because GOD IS LOVE and we can love because He first loved us.

We cant afford to become complacent with our love for God in this time! He is coming back for His glorious church!!

And He didn’t choose you for this time to not be a representative of HIS love in the earth. we are known for love.

1 Corinthians 13 “Love is the most important thing. If i could speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but didnt love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…[Jesus listed all the good things this church did, but ultimately if they don’t repent/ change, they are NOTHING].

Love is…

• patient and kind
• not jealous or proud or rude
• Not selfish or self-seeking
• not irritable or easily angered
• keeps no record of injustice [can we read that again?!]
• rejoices in justice
• never gives up
• never loses faith
• always hopeful
• endures through every circumstance.”

Can we say that our heart is this kind of love? Does our life demonstrate this?

Are we holding on to injustice when we should be giving that injustice to the Lord knowing that He reigns with justice?

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.”

Let us choose to not fall into this church category: loyal, but without love

All my love, Sara