You Didn’t Lose It, You Left It

Today’s Reading: Revelation 2

Famed classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma was in a rush to get from one side of Manhattan to the other for a quick appearance. So rushed that when he arrived at his destination, he paid his driver, exited the cab, and forgot to take his cello with him. He’d placed the cello in the trunk of the taxi. And the cello was priceless: handcrafted by Antonio Stradivari in 1733 in Vienna, Austria, valued at $2.5 million. Frantic, Ma began a desperate search, eventually finding the cab later that day parked in a garage in Queens—with the cello still in the trunk.

Wow, talk about leaving something priceless inadvertently. In today’s chapter, though, a church is accused of something more devastating—leaving their first love.

Revelation 2 and 3 are messages from Jesus to seven churches. Not every message is encouraging. In fact, they are convicting even two thousand years later. The first church God speaks to is the church of Ephesus:

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this: “I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” (Revelation 2:1-4)

You have left your first love.

A few years ago, I left my Kindle on a plane. I’d leaned it against the wall in the exit row by my seat. I was packing up my bag as we were landing and something said to me, Put that in your backpack. I didn’t. I left a thousand books leaning against the wall of the plane. Let me be clear. I didn’t lose it. I knew exactly where it was—seat 15C, flight #629 out of Atlanta.

Lost has no idea where it is. Lost means it fell out of a pocket, a car, or a jacket.

The church of Ephesus left something bigger and more massive than a thousand books.

For all my life, I have heard the wrong word used in this verse, which makes all the difference about the church of Ephesus. It’s a verse that if anyone has been in the church for any amount of time, they have probably said it, heard it, or even quoted it. I have always said, “You have lost your first love.” Not one version of the Bible puts “lost” in this verse. It is, “You have left.”

Lost has the connotation of removing blame from the person, as in my “love for God” just got accidentally lost in the hustle and bustle of life. Let’s be clear: Ephesus left it. Ephesus did not lose its first love. There is blame here. That’s why they are not being challenged “to find it” but to repent for it. Repentance deals with responsibility.

Ephesus is the only church to have two different apostles write letters to it. In the book of Ephesians, Paul offers two prayers for the church, that they might have more light and more love. This was one of the few places Paul stayed for a length of time (three years). The church of Ephesus was first pastored by Apollos. Timothy then became the pastor (the first epistle to Timothy was while he was pastoring the Ephesus church; see 1 Timothy 1:3). Later on, John pastored the church. It was while he was in Ephesus that John was exiled to Patmos.

How do you lose your first love when your pastors were Apollos, Timothy, and John? How do you lose your first love when you had the apostle Paul hang with your church for three years? How do you lose your first love when you get two New Testament letters written to you?

Two thoughts:

First, Jesus says “you” left your first love. You means you have to take responsibility. It seems they fell in love with their successes and accomplishments—that’s verses 2 and 3—but fell out of love with Jesus. This danger is subtle.

What’s interesting is that the apostle Paul warned the Ephesian people in Acts 20:28, “Be on guard for yourselves.” You, not demons, can be your worst enemy.

Second, the word to leave is a process word. It means to let expire. We have to renew certain things—our driver’s license, our insurance, subscriptions, etc. So too, our love for God will expire if we are not renewing it on a daily basis.

On October 11, 1775, the whaling ship Herald was fishing just off Greenland when it spotted another ship. When it got closer, it saw that even though the ship was sailing, its sails were tattered and hanging limply on the masts. The captain ordered a few of his men to board the other ship. What they discovered shocked them. Everyone onboard the other ship, which they determined was the Octavius, a boat that had disappeared in 1761, was frozen to death. The ship had been sailing for fourteen years. Still moving, but no one alive.

That’s what happens when we keep doing things and let our love for Jesus expire. It wasn’t renewed. It starts when our conversations with God reduce to being on a need-to-talk basis or a once-a-week basis. Time spent in prayer becomes based more on convenience. We will see God on Sunday but not any other day.

My prayer is what Amy Carmichael prayed: “God hold us to that which drew us first, when the Cross was the attraction, and we wanted nothing else.”


Excerpt from:
Dilena, Tim. The 260 Journey. Colorado Springs, CO, Book Villages, 2001.
260journey.com