Fr. Mike Schmitz

This is chapter two, verse two.

I know your works, your toil, your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men, but have tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not, and have found them to be false.

I know you're enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake.

And you have not grown weary.

All of these things are so good.

They are orthodox, right?

They're believing the right things.

Orthopraxy, they're living the right way.

And they're also even suffering for the sake of the Lord.

They're doing great.

But he says in verse four, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

And this is just so key.

You know, we can do, we can believe the right things.

We can do the right things.

And that's good.

And Jesus, he even praises them for that.

But we're not just about doing the right things or believing the right things.

It's about loving the one who lived and suffered, died and rose from the dead for us.

It's about love.

And so whenever I hear, read this, and I've read it quite often throughout the course of the year, every year, and I hear those words of Jesus to Ephesus, and I think, I don't want that to be me because I can recognize, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.