The Dance

  To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands. 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.

 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:1-7)

 

One idea that has come to mind with regard to “When the going gets tough...” was to look at the churches to whom Christ dictated letters in the book of Revelation. It seems likely that they were facing tough times. The first of those churches was the church at Ephesus. Keep in mind as you read that the temple of Artemis was there, and the people of Ephesus were very protective of their goddess, who fell from the sky to them. Insult her, and you’re likely to end up dead at the hands of rioters. She was their claim to fame and their meal-ticket.

Jesus commends them for:

1)    Hard Work

2)    Perseverance

3)    The lack of tolerance for evil people

4)    Testing those who claimed to be apostles

5)    Perseverance. Yes, He mentions this twice

Then He tells them that they had fallen from their first love. They needed to repent and return to doing what they did early on. After that, he returned to commendation:

6)    The hated the Nicolaitans

The Nicolaitans were a group of people who held an antinomian philosophy. That means they held the view that they could do anything and everything they wanted to. Some suggest the reason for this was that they viewed the body as being corrupt and temporary, but the soul pure and everlasting. So it didn’t matter what they did with their bodies. They were “free!” and if they did do something wrong in with their bodies, well, God would forgive them. After all, it was just their bodies, not their souls that they befouled.

In Ephesians 1, Paul commended the Ephesians for their faith and their love of God’s people. In spite of these, their hard work, their perseverance, and their intolerance of evil people, Jesus tells them that they’ve left their first love.  I’m not sure what he meant. Clearly, they would d have understood.

However, imagine a pair of dancers moving across the floor to some beautiful piece of music. At some point, one of the dancers leaves the arms of her partner and, holding his hand, dances beside him. After several measures, she drops his hand and separately, they step through the choreography of the music. When he steps closer, she moves away, somewhat irritated. He’s interrupting the dance. Doesn’t he understand how important it is?

But the point of the dance isn’t the dance, it’s the partnership. This is what I suspect happened with the Ephesians. I see it in modern churches, too. We’re so busy doing some program or other that we don’t notice that we’re placing more importance on the program than on God. We must have the right worship leader who leads us to sing songs that will bring in the outsider because evangelism is important. It doesn’t matter that the people who are already attending the church find nothing worshipful in the music, it’s all about doing the work. Isn’t that why we’re here, to do the work of God? To evangelize the unchurched? To reach the world for His glory?

I can point any fingers. The slide from doing for the love of Christ to doing it because it’s what I do, or doing it because it needs to be done, or doing it for my own glory is very short and very slippery. And… when the going gets tough… the tough get going. See that hill? Take that hill! Work harder. Work longer. Don’t take no for an answer! Come on, God, get with the program… oops.

When the going gets tough, we need to make sure we’re still dancing with God.