1—All of us have someone we admire. Maybe a coach, a teacher, a counselor, a pastor, or a friend. We sit up when they come into the room. We pay attention to them when they speak. Their opinion matters. We don’t want to disappoint them. We want their approval.
2—All of us also have someone we emulate. We like how they do things, and how they say things. They are an example to us. They model what we want and hope to be. We learn from them. We get inspired by the,
3—Jesus wants to be all of those things to us. The best friend, the perfect coach, the treasured mentor, and the one we want to be like.
But Jesus found something wrong in the Ephesians saints. Their blood pressure was up, their arteries were clogged. Their hearts had experienced a gradual buildup of other things so that Jesus was no longer holding the position of first place in their hearts. He wasn’t first in their schedules, in their concentration, and all that signaled that He was no longer the supreme ruler of their hearts and lives.
In ancient math, when you added up a column of numbers, the sum went at the top.
Jesus started adding everything up, all of Ephesus’ great works, but what He found was that the sum total of their lives did not add up to Him. They had “left their first love.”
Jesus wasn’t at the top. He was part of the equation, part of the calculations.
He was critical, He just wasn’t the most important. He wasn’t the sum total of their lives.
In modern American math, the total goes at the bottom. So when someone asks you what the bottom line is, they’re not asking for an explanation of everything that went into the calculations. The Ephesians were overflowing with good works. They labored. They were patient. They wouldn’t tolerate evil. They rooted out false prophets. They persevered.
From WOLFL-2024-04 – Keep Focused On Jesus Always As First (240417AM) – https://youtu.be/F7dMCl4O-Sc
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