Walking With Christ

Revelation 2:4–5  (4)But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  (5)Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.  If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.(ESV)

Dear Church,

I love you.

I need to begin there because some of what follows may sound like criticism, and criticism without love is easy.  It’s easy to stand outside something, point at everything that’s broken, and congratulate ourselves for noticing.

I’m not standing outside.  I’m part of you.

Your failures are our failures.  Your wounds are our wounds.  Your compromises are ours to repent of, and your calling is still ours to carry.  And, Church, we need to come home.

Somewhere along the way, we learned how to build impressive rooms while forgetting how to build disciples.  We learned how to produce experiences, organize events, fill calendars, develop brands, count attendance, measure engagement, and create things people would come back to see.

None of those things are inherently evil.  But they’re terrible substitutes for the presence of God.

We’ve sometimes confused crowds with fruit, charisma with character, gifting with maturity, influence with authority, emotion with the movement of the Holy Spirit, and popularity with faithfulness.  We’ve occasionally become so afraid of offending the world that we stopped telling it the truth.

At other times, we became so angry at the world that we stopped loving the people in it.  Neither looks very much like Jesus.

We’ve watched pastors become celebrities, churches become brands, worship become performances, theology become ammunition, politics become identity, and brothers and sisters become enemies over arguments that should never have been powerful enough to divide the family of God.

We’ve wounded people.  Sometimes knowingly.  Sometimes carelessly.  Sometimes while sincerely believing we were defending God.

We’ve protected institutions when we should have protected people.  We’ve hidden sin when we should’ve exposed it to light.  We’ve condemned struggling people when they needed someone to walk beside them, and we’ve called compromise “grace” when someone desperately needed to hear the truth.

We’ve gotten some things badly wrong.  And yet I still love you.  More importantly, Christ still loves you.

That’s why correction is possible.

Jesus didn’t tell the church at Ephesus, “You’ve abandoned your first love, so I’m finished with you.”

He told them to remember.  Repent.  Return.

There’s extraordinary grace hidden inside that command.  Return means there’s still somewhere to return to.  Repentance isn’t God slamming the door.  Repentance is God standing in the doorway calling His people home.

So come home, Church.

Come back to prayer when nobody is watching.

Come back to Scripture when it doesn’t support what we hoped it would say.

Come back to worship that doesn’t need a stage.

Come back to pastors who shepherd instead of perform.

Come back to leaders who would rather wash feet than build platforms.

Come back to holiness without self-righteousness.

Come back to grace without compromise.

Come back to truth spoken with enough love that the person hearing it knows we’re fighting for them, not against them.

Come back to feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely, protecting the vulnerable, discipling children, strengthening marriages, caring for widows, restoring the fallen, welcoming the stranger, and carrying one another’s burdens.

Come back to Jesus.

Not a political version of Jesus.  Not a marketable version.  Not the comfortable Jesus who agrees with everything we already believe.

Jesus.

The One who touched lepers, confronted hypocrites, welcomed sinners and then told them to leave their sin behind, washed the feet of men who would abandon Him, and carried a cross for people who were still His enemies.

The One who died for His Bride.

Church, you are still His Bride.

Bruised in places.  Stained in others.  Sometimes distracted.  Sometimes proud.  Sometimes exhausted.  Sometimes lost in arguments that’ll look embarrassingly small when we finally stand before Him.

But still loved.  Still called.  Still capable of repentance.  Still capable of becoming what Christ intended us to be.

I don’t want a different Church.  I want this one healed, purified, and awakened.  I want this one to remember who she belongs to.

There’s still time to return, grace enough for repentance, blood enough for cleansing, a Shepherd calling His wandering sheep, and there’s still a Bridegroom preparing for His Bride.

Church, I love you too much to pretend everything is fine.  But I also love you too much to believe that everything is lost.

Remember.  Repent.  Return.

Your first Love is still waiting.