The Test of Love预览

The Foundation of Our Faith

John’s letter to Ephesus revealed some great things about the Ephesian Christians. They were hard workers. They didn’t give up easily. They were faced with constant opposition, but they didn’t waver. There were daily acts of mercy and compassion to perform, and they did them with regularity. They didn’t forget to gather together, despite the danger, to worship each Lord’s Day. They were also discerning about doctrine.

A group of heretics, the Nicolaitans, were trying to worm themselves into the church and upset its devotion to Christ. They denied the necessity for moral standards—they taught that you could love Christ and do what you liked. But the Ephesians did not tolerate these evil men. They were a vigorous, alert group of Christians. Christ commended them for all this—he knew it well and approved of it. But he also saw something else. In their vigor to do the right thing, they had be­come the wrong kind of people. What more could you ask of Christians? Well, love for one thing. He accused them of abandoning the love they had at first.

Love was the beginning of their faith. And ours too, of course. The foundation of Christianity is an immense act of love—the love of God for them, for us, for all who come to God. God’s love for them was the experience that brought everything else to wholeness. Their love for God involved them in a life that had purpose, intensity, and passion. Their love for one another diversified and extended the experience.

As they went along, though, they found it easier to keep doing everything else but love. This was not a gentle drifting away but rather a catastrophic fall. This fall was so massive in its implications that they might as well have been leaving the center of existence.

For love is not what we do after we get the other things done, if we have any energy left over. Love is what we do, period. It is not how we work; it is our work. If we don’t love, we aren’t doing what we were created and saved to do.

Heavenly Father, You have drawn us to You through your love, and we can’t know You apart from love. It is Your love that has given us our very life.