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LISTEN NOW! John, Steve, and Pat discuss how our love for God is foundational before our work for Him. They continue to discuss how Jesus’ revelation to the churches in Revelation. They discuss how there seems to be a pattern. Jesus first declares who He is, what he has observed them doing, what the church needs to fix or address and offers a reward to each church that overcomes. When Jesus addresses the church of Ephesus He informs them that He is the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and that He is the one who walks among the lampstands. He begins to share with them what He knows. We must always know that we live under God’s all Seeing Eye and that nothing escapes Him ever. Revelations 2:2 tells us what Jesus knew about them. “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” He was familiar with their deeds and their good works yet he still had something against them. They had forsaken or abandoned their first love. They continue to discuss the importance of working for God from a position of love. God is not impressed by what we can do for Him if we don’t even love Him. “Passion to do the work of the Lord can never become greater than passion for the Lord of the work” says Ryan Bruss. Your work for God should never increase while your love and passion for God is decreasing. You can look at two people working for God and on the surface it looks the same but one may be a lover and the other just a worker. A lover of God works out of the overflow of love for God and the worker just works and maybe even thinks he is earning love. They continue to underscore the importance of abiding and spending time with Jesus. Jesus himself instructed them and us today to repent, remember the heights of which you have fallen and do the things you did at first. God gives a promise to those who overcome and that is the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
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