The repeated refrain of all Jesus' words to the 7 churches is this: 'I know'. Jesus sees everything- nothing is hidden from His view. And more specifically, Jesus sees how we treat Him and how we respond to Him. He commends those who persevere believing in Him, who hate wickedness, who endure suffering for His Name, who are faithful to the end (2, 9-10). To those people, He offers life (7, 10). But His firm rebuke is for those who have 'forsaken' their 'first love' (4).
He's not talking about broken relationships and marriages falling apart. He's talking about Him and US. He is meant to be our first love- the highest in our hearts. That kind of intimacy may seem incredible, but it's true- that's the relationship God wants with us. The title of this blog is 'Treasuring Christ'- because the Bible makes it clear that we are to do that- to love Jesus and grow in love for Him over our lives.
The danger many of us face having been Christians for a while, is to lose our love for Jesus. We go through the motions of attending church, of getting our godly appearance right, but somewhere along the line we get too wrapped up in the politics of church life. And the fire in our soul, the flame of love for Christ slowly dwindles and wanes.
How can we fight that? We need to remember that Jesus is real, He is watching over us and He is with us. His words of encouragement to the church in Smyrna are an encouragement to us too- He died and came to life again, therefore He can handle our problems! (8) He knows our circumstances exactly, and He will act for our good in all situations, even through suffering.
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