Balance

Our spiritual life is truly a balance.  This is true for us as individuals and as corporate bodies (congregations).  Two components of that balance are correct belief and correct action.  As Jesus speaks through John in Revelation 2 we find a description of this balance.

The congregation at Ephesus is given good marks for their attention to orthodoxy and keeping false beliefs and teachers out of the church.  They test their teachers against the foundation of God's Word and they expel falseness.  That is a good thing.

However, it appears that the church had become a bastion of doctrinal correctness but also inattentiveness to God's first priority, love.  Paul, in 1 Cor. 13 tells us that without love our prophecy, eloquence, knowledge and even our faith is lost in nothingness.  Jesus said that WITH love of God and people we would be true to all of the commandments of God.  I think they are onto what the Ephesians had lost ... the true # 1 thing.

I believe what is being said in Revelation 2, 1 Cor. 13 and Jesus' "Great Commandment" is that the flow of our faith, our ability to teach, our ability to win others to an understanding of God and our worship must necessarily flow from a love of God and people.  This is the foundation upon which our doctrine and our orthodoxy rests.  Without love it all blows away like (to quote a famous song) dust in the wind.  That is precisely why Jesus Himself tells the Ephesians that failure to get this right will result in Jesus removing their lampstand ... they would cease to be part of the Church.  WOW, love must be really important as the foundation of correct action!