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Here's Anne Graham Lutz.
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If I can ask you, have you ever been in love with Jesus? And if you haven't been, you're missing, I think, the most precious aspect of the Christian life. But if you have been in love with Jesus and you're not in love with him, why so what, what's happened? Can you remember the height from which you've fallen?
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Today on Living in the Light, Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz takes us to Revelation chapters two and three. And Anne asks the have you had a heart cauterization? God takes the light of his word and he shines it into the heart of seven churches just as he does with us. And that's to reveal what is found in our hearts and in our lives. Ann now explains how the vision of God's glory is reflected in each of us through the repentance of our sin. So it's time to get right with God. Let's join Ann now and find out
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how you know, I don't know where you were. Did you see the moon come up? Wasn't it spectacular? And interesting thing about the moon is that it has no light in itself. All of that is light that's reflected from the sun. So I want to change the title for the message because had it, you know, the vision of his glory requires our repentance, but it really is that his glory is reflected in us through our repentance, through our from sin. So if we are harboring sin in our lives, then that reflection of his glory is tarnished and other people won't see it as clearly. Several years ago, actually quite a few years ago, I was leading a seminar here at the COVID and it was a four day seminar. So I gave seven messages, nine workshops. I was training people to not only study God's word, but to teach from it. So it was very intense. So, so I came up here 10 days ahead of time to just, you know, put myself aside and concentrate on the messages. So the first day I got up there, I pulled out my Bible and my legal pad and my pen and I was just eager to get started and just couldn't get it. And so I thought, well, Ann, you're tired, you just ought to get something to eat, go get a good night's sleep and try in the morning. So that's what I did. The next morning I got up, had my legal pad, my pen, my Bible and went to study and got nothing. And so I worked on it and the passage wouldn't break open. And so I told the Lord, I just started to pray, Lord, I've got to have help. I need to break this open because I have to prepare the message. I have a seminar coming at me. It's like a train coming at me in nine days now. So would you help me in silence? And I was beginning to get desperate, you know, So I was telling my timeframe and what I needed, and finally there was a little whisper that came to me. And the little whisper was, ann, I don't want to talk about the message. I want to talk about you. So I told the Lord, I don't want to talk about me. So let's get the messages done, and after the seminar, then we'll talk about me. So then there was nothing. So I couldn't do it. So finally I got on my knees and I said, all right, Lord, what is it you want to talk about? And this was triggered. I'd been reading a little pamphlet about revival. Would you believe the series was on revival? I was writing a book on revival, and I've read a little pamphlet on revival by an old timey revivalist. And this old timey preacher had a list of sins in this little pamphlet, and he said to read it through three times. So I thought, all right, to humor this old timey man, I'll read it through three times. So I read it through the first time, and I just was so smug. There's not one of those sins in my life, you know, and then read it through the second time, and I thought I felt so spiritual because, you know, if I stretched it, I could see maybe two or three of those sins in my life. Read it through the third time. I saw every single sin in that list in my life in one form or another. I can't tell you the impact. I was broken. And I got on my face before the Lord and I started confessing my sin. And do you know, for seven days, and every time I opened my Bible, there was another sin he was revealing. Every time I would hear a message, and I came down here to hear a great preacher down here in the evenings, every time he got up to speak, God revealed another sin. It was the most painful spiritual experience I've ever been through. It was Isaiah 6. Remember when Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord and then he said, woe is me, and he was a man of unclean lips, and he began to confess his sin. And so I did that for seven days. And finally I felt like, you know, nothing else was coming. And so I said, lord, you know, are we through? And he let me know from Scripture that we were through. And I said, I can't go down and lead this seminar when I'm this sinful person. All the sin in my life, I didn't even know was there until youl revealed it. And I know I've confessed it, and I believe you've cleansed me, but how can I go back and minister to others? And I need a recall. So he recalled me to ministry. He spoke to me from Scripture, and he recalled me that day to ministry. And then there was two days left or three days left. He just downloaded all my material. And when I came down here, nobody knew what I'd been going through. But I think there was a freshness and power and energy. And I know even the colors outside looked brighter and the joy was there and exuberance. And I discovered that revival and reflecting his glory, it comes through repentance. We have to get right with God. But sometimes repentance is a gift from God. You know that. So I can't just repent on my own. There's certain sins you certainly can turn away from. But the sins that he pointed out to me, I needed him to point those out to me, to reveal those in my heart and life. And so in Revelation chapters two and three, if you'll open your Bibles, he takes the light of His Word and he shines it into the heart of these seven churches. So in a sense, he's performing a heart catheterization. Do you have one of those? Years ago, I failed a nuclear stress test, just in a dramatic way. And so they put me through a heart cath, and everything was fine. I had no blockage, but they had to send that little camera down to look at my heart and make sure everything was going right. And that's what Jesus does in these seven churches. So I know many of you are applying this to your church, which is a very valid thing to do. But we are the church. So it's not just the church building on the corner, but it's you and me as the body of Christ, and so we can take these and apply them to ourselves. So that's what I'm going to do. So I'll touch on. I'll go into maybe two of them, maybe three, but I'll touch on all of them to give you an idea of what he sees in the hearts and lives of these churches. So if we want his glory to be reflected in our lives, we need to repent. And in Ephesus, I felt like it was a repentance of busyness. And this is just what I saw. Ephesus was an interesting city because the Apostle Paul had founded the church. John had been a pastor there, Timothy was a superintendent. And the people in the church when this letter was written, they were in the second generation. So most of them had been born and raised in the church. Born and raised in a Christian home. And so I identify with the, the church at Ephesus because I've been under excellent leadership and I was raised in a Christian home. My parents, grandparents, great grandparents were all committed Christians. And so I can identify with the Ephesian church. And I don't know if you can. Have you been exposed to excellent leadership, whether it's in your church or maybe the books that you've read or the seminars you've gone to or the audios and videos you watch and listen to. And were you born and raised in the church? So if you're like I am and like Ephesus, then sometimes we can become so familiar with the gospel and the things of God that we become sort of mechanical and perfunctory in our Christian faith. So Jesus begins, and by the way, the pattern for all of these letters is exactly the same. He starts out and he identifies himself in a way that's relevant to that particular church. And then he says, learn from me. I know something you're doing right, what you're doing wrong, what you need to do to correct that. And then he says, listen to me and I'll give you a principle. And then he has a promise that he would give them. So that's in all seven churches. So the first one in Ephesus, he says, in essence, look at me in verse one, these are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven lampstands. The lampstands represent the church, the stars are the leaders of the church. But I'm applying that to you and me. And he holds us in his hand, and in his right hand, in the right hand I hold my pen or my hairbrush or my fork. So I'm right handed. So I use my right hand to hold the things I want to use. And so when he says he holds us in his right hand, I think he's saying, I want to use you and I'm here in your midst. So I'm just going to apply that to you because Jesus is here. And I believe the fact that you are here is a divine appointment. So he's moving in our midst and I believe he wants to use you. So where are you looking? Turn Your eyes on Jesus. Look at him. So he wants to meet you here in a fresh way. This is a divine appointment for you. And then he says, learn from me. I know what you're doing right? And in verses two and three, he says, I know your deeds, your hard work, your perseverance. I know you can't tolerate wicked men, that you've tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them. You've persevered, have endured hardship for my name and have not grown weary. And I just parked on the 1st. I know your deeds. And I love the fact that he knows what you're doing. And it may be that you'll never be on a platform, you'll never write a book. Nobody will ever put your name in a program. But you're the one that keeps the nursery. You're the one that turns on the lights. You're the ones that organizes the meals for somebody who's been in the hospital. And he knows your deeds. So in those two verses, I hear heaven's applause. So I just. So there's no catch to this, okay? So he knows your deeds. And I want you to receive the encouragement that you have. Heaven's applause tonight. When there's so many people who are complacent, so many people who are apathetic, he says, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all that you're doing for me. And he knows it's hard. He says, your hardship, life can be hard. And to serve him and to maintain your responsibilities at home and in your office if you're working in a career, and to still serve him, it's hard to balance all of that. And he says, I know. And he thanks you for it. So he commended them for what they were doing. So he says, I know your deeds. I know what you're doing right. But then he says, I know what you're doing wrong. Verse 4. Yet I hold this against you. You've forsaken your first love. And a first love, I don't know. Do you remember when you first fell in love with your spouse? If you have a spouse? And I remember when I first fell in love with Danny Lotz and I couldn't talk to him enough. He was in Raleigh. I was up here. But we'd get on the phone and we'd talk for hours. I couldn't wait to hear everything he had to say. And then I would tell him everything I was doing. So we just. You know, I would listen to him and I would talk to him, and we just did That I never got tired of it. Even when we're in a room and they said, well, separate and, you know, go out and mingle. We always did that together because we just loved being together. We were in love. And a first love for Jesus is emotional. It's passionate, it's affectionate. You just can't talk to him enough in prayer. You want to hear what he says. You have an insatiable hunger for your Bible. You're reading and you're studying and you're taking it in, and you're in love with Jesus. When you lose your love, he said in verse five, you've fallen. You're losing your usefulness to him. You're losing your testimony, and you become perfunctory and mechanical, and you're just going through the motions of your Christian life. And sometimes that's because we just get so busy, busy, busy, and we succumb to the tyranny of the urgent, and we do the things that we have to do for an employer or a boss or what, you know, because we're punching a clock or we're getting our paycheck or. And we think Jesus understands if I just move him over a little bit, if I don't get up this morning, I'm so tired, or if I have to work late at the office, and, you know, I can't have time tonight. And Jesus understands. And what he understands is that he's not first. And when you neglect him like that, you'll lose your love for him because a love relationship requires time. So I'll share with you my testimony, because the Lord. Oh, my goodness, he spoke to me from this passage. So I taught Bible study fellowship in Raleigh for 12 years. Never missed a class because I wanted to learn everything God had for me. And then I went out into an itinerant ministry. And the last message I gave my leaders, I had 65 leaders. And the last message I gave them was from this passage. And I told them, don't put the mechanics before the ministry. Keep love for Jesus first. And I went out into an itinerant ministry with that commitment myself. The first thing I did was a pastor's conference in Fiji. I had to look up on the globe to see where that was. And it's on the other side of the world, basically. And 500 pastors came. I had six messages to give. The other speaker wanted to go sit on the beach, so he dumped three of his messages on me. So I ended up doing more than my share. I was exhausted, but I did it. I came Back. And I was invited to Brazil to speak at a big evangelism conference, which I did. Then they heard I was there. I was invited to go south, Brazil to speak to a youth conference, which I did. And I came back, and I was speaking all over. And I knew when I went to church, I no longer entered into the worship. You know, I knew when I prayed, my prayers just sort of hit the ceiling. I knew I didn't have that joy and that zest, but. And I was reading this passage, and the Lord said, ann, I know your deeds. I know you went to Fiji and you took those extra sessions. And I know you went to Brazil and you took on things that you weren't supposed to do. And you've served me and you've. It's been hard, and thank you. But I have something against you. You're losing your love for me. I went to the next verse. I knew that wasn't me because I go around and tell other people how to love the Lord, you know, but you know how he does when he convicts you of something. You can't get away from it. So it just kept coming back to me and back to me. And finally I got on my knees and I had tears slipping down my face. And I said, all right, Lord, what do you see? And he said, anne, you're so busy, busy, busy. You're losing your love for me and all the busyness. You're going through the motions. And do you remember the height from which you're. He told me three things to do from verse 5. Remember the height from which you're falling. I could remember. I knew what it was to be in love with Jesus. And when you lose it, it's a long way down. And then you're just going through the motions, and it's mechanical, and that's burnout. And then he said, repent. And I said, well, Lord, if a first love is emotional, affectionate, how can I. And repentance is to stop it, you know, to turn away from it. How do you stop not having a love for you? I can't control my emotions like that. So then he told me the third thing. He said, return to the things you did at first. So I said, what first things? So he brought to my mind the cross. And you return to the cross. You confess your lack of love is the sin that it is. What's the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. So surely the greatest sin is to not love the Lord your God with all your Heart, mind, soul and strength. So I went to the cross, confessed my sin, took a good look at what it cost Jesus to bring me into that love relationship with the Father. And then I knew I was cleansed. But then he brought to my mind another first thing. Ann, what were you doing when you were in love with me that you're not doing now? I knew exactly what it was. I had been going around giving these messages, and I hadn't studied anything fresh. So I got out my legal pad, my pen, my Bible, and I started doing paragraph by paragraph through the book of Revelation and the book, the vision of his glory, that is the fruit of my repentance. That comes right out of those three questions. As I sought the Lord and asked him to reveal things in my heart and went through the book of Revelation, somebody asked me, anne, how could you write a book on Revelation? And I said, you know, I just wrote out what I felt like God was showing me. This is what he said to me. And you might argue some points or whatever, but it's been theologically checked, and so it's solid. But it's just what God said to me as a result of my coming back to the first things. Because when I did that, within a week's time, the joy was back, the sense of his presence, I could enter into worship. I prayed and felt like I was getting through. So it didn't take long to get all of that straightened out. I never want to lose my first love, but I fiercely hold on to that time in the morning when I center down and I read His Word and I ask myself, what does it say? What does it mean? What does it mean in my life? What's my takeaway? And. And I listen for his voice to speak to me through His Word. That's the center of my life. That's where I commune with him and that maintains my heartbeat of love for Him. If I can ask you, have you ever been in love with Jesus? And if you haven't been, you're missing, I think, the most precious aspect of the Christian life. But if you have been in love with Jesus and you're not in love with Inqua, so what's happened? Can you remember the height from which you've fallen? And then verse 5 says, repent. Are you willing to turn away from just going through the motions? You want that love back, then return to the first things. And it could be something like it was for me. Maybe when you first were in love with Jesus, you spent more time in prayer. Maybe you were sharing your faith and sharing the gospel. Maybe you were. You know, I don't know what it could be. But also it could be what was not in your life when you were in love with Jesus that you've let creep into your life. Because I'll tell you something. Sin will rob you of your love relationship with the Lord. You can actually have sin in your life to the point that you feel like you've lost your salvation. I don't believe you can lose your salvation, and I'm firm on that. But you can feel like you have if you've let sin come into your life and just build up. And it could be that you don't even know, like me. I didn't even know all that until the Lord revealed it. So ask him to search your heart. The warning that he gave me was in verse five. He said, if you don't repent, if you don't put love for me back first, I'll remove your lampstand. Lampstand was a stand on which you place the lamp so it gives you a broader reach. And so I felt like he was talking about my ministry, that if I didn't put love for him back first, he would just dry up my ministry. And I didn't have a. I don't have a brochure or PR therm or anything. It's just word of mouth, and he could dry that up. In the beginning, I was so afraid he would call me into ministry. I was afraid of those open doors. And then at a certain point, I was afraid he wouldn't open doors for me. So I didn't want him to dry it up. Because ministry for me is a worship experience. I'm here because I love Jesus. And this is an act of worship just to share his word with you. I can tell you that I've been in churches that have lost their love for Jesus, I guess. And there's sin in the camp and he doesn't bulldoze the church. But I know you've been in churches like I have, where the Spirit of God has left. So heed the warning. Listen to me. He says the principle is this, that love for Jesus must come first. Is there somebody here who's putting your work before your worship? It's so easy to do, isn't it? Because we love him, we want to do something for him, and so we do something. And people know that we'll do something for him, so they ask us to do something else for him and then something else. And pretty soon we're busy, busy, busy. And the very Things we were doing to express our love for him crowds out our time with him, pushes him to the back burner and robs us of our love for Him. So put your worship back first and then let your work flow from your worship. The promise in verse seven, to the one who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of Life, which is in the paradise of God. And so one who overcomes this lack of love. So if you put loving him back first, I give the right to eat from the tree of Life. The tree of life represents eternal life. Eternal life is not just going to heaven when you die, but it's that personal, permanent love relationship with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Right now he says, you'll have it, you'll eat of it. You'll be satisfied. You'll be fulfilled right in the paradise of God. You'll be aware of his presence in your life. What a promise. So put love for Jesus back first. You want people to see a reflection of his glory in your life. Then repent of the busyness that has crowded him out. Are you listening to what the Spirit is saying? The church at Ephesus was not. And I've walked through the ruins of that church. The second church is a church at Smyrn, and I'm not going to go into that. But they were a perfect church. Jesus found nothing at all in this church to correct them. For can you imagine standing before the Lord and having him smile with delight and pleasure and see nothing in you that he needs to correct? I know it won't be me. Wouldn't it be something to stand before him and find that you've done everything right? So the beautiful church at Smyrna had done everything right. They were being persecuted even to the point that one of their members had been martyred. So he commends them. And I see possibly a tendency in their lives to do something that wasn't right. So they didn't. I don't want to tarnish their reputation, okay? But this is just something I see a tendency when it says in verse 10, it says, don't be afraid. And I wonder, after they were so persecuted and one of their members was put to death, the next time they had the opportunity to share the Gospel, did they hesitate? Were they afraid of suffering more persecution? He's saying, don't be afraid. And that's one thing I just thank God for. You know, I didn't follow Charlie Kirk, so I knew who he was, but I wasn't into all of his things until he was shot. And then like everybody else, I followed him and learned about him and watched every minute of that funeral. I think it was five and a half hours. And everybody that came across the platform, just about every single person gave witness to their faith. And then it just went out so that other people, now you see entertainers and politicians and leaders sharing their faith boldly. And I think, thank God, Somehow we had become so afraid in this cancel culture that we were denying who Jesus is in our lives. And so I feel like that. So I don't want to thank God for the death of Charlie Kirk, but I thank God for the way he has used it and for Erica Kirk's strength and for her to get up there and say she's forgiven the people that the man that's shot him. And it was a remarkable testimony to the reality of Jesus Christ in somebody's life. So don't be afraid. And I thank God that people are becoming more and more bold. And you just watch it because as you become more bold, the pushback's going to be harder and the persecution may get stiffer. In verse 10, he says, you will suffer persecution for 10 days. So I don't know what that means, except I'll just apply it this way. Suffering is temporary. It doesn't last forever. And even if it lasts your entire lifetime, your lifetime is temporary compared to eternity. And then he says, be faithful even to the point of death, and I'll give you the crown of life. And so you just keep your focus on the big picture. So don't be afraid.
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You can hear Living in the Light with Anne Graham Lotz Weekly and and for ways to experience the God filled life as you pursue your personal Bible study, go to anngramlotts. Org. She'll help you get started with free resources you can use and share with others. Join us here each week for Living in the Light.