In Revelation 2:1-5, the Lord rebukes the church at Ephesus because it had lost sight of the first things. In other respects it was a remarkable church. The Christians there had laboured with patience, they had hated evil, they had exposed false apostles, they had persevered and endured for the sake of the Name. Heart and soul they were in the Lord's work and nothing had made them give up. Yet, in spite of all this, the Lord had something against them. It constituted so serious a lack as to threaten their very existence as a testimony for Him.

They had fallen, He told them, and if they did not repent, He would withdraw from them His anointing, the sign of His approval of their testimony. What was this serious lack? It was just this - that they had grown cold in their love for their Lord. They had not lost their first love for Him; they had just left it behind and moved elsewhere. They had become so busy with their meetings and retreats and conventions (if we may so speak) and other forms of Christian activity that they had lost sight of the One for whom all these other things existed.

Clearly this shows that the Lord cares more for the devotion of our hearts towards Him than for all our activity. The Devil, knowing this, will do his utmost to get us so involved in Christian engagement of one kind and another that we find no time to spend with our blessed Lord and thus let slip our personal devotedness to Him.

Jesus warned us that in the last days sin would so abound in the world that many would become cold in their love to Him (Matt. 24:12). We are living in those days now. Among the vast majority of the professed followers of the Lord, the spiritual temperature is below freezing point.

Unless we ourselves are constantly watchful, we shall find that frigid atmosphere penetrating inside us as well. My brothers and sisters in Christ, even if you lose everything else, do not let go this one thing - your love for your Lord.