Recently I felt led by God to bless my pastors at Freedom in Worship with a bag of home baked goods. They are a dear sweet couple who have a heart for ministry to the homeless. I had felt the urging from God to bless them when they lived close to me but at that time I was having difficulty figuring out how to feed myself and I did not know if I had the finances to feed others also. The Lord has blessed me to a point where I really don’t care if I have enough money to feed myself. If He wants me to feed others who are serving Him I just need to do it.

While I was progressing in my faith to this point the Lord moved this sweet couple into a different neighborhood. I have a patient in that neighborhood. I decided I would do a blessing drop at their home when I was out visiting my patient.

I had messaged the wife of the pastor and told her my intentions. She messaged me back that if she was not home I could just leave it on their porch. As I drove up I saw three of their neighbors outside. They looked a bit scary and I did not know if my food would survive being left on their porch. So I decided to knock on the door just to check to see if anyone was home. The pastor opened the door and I was able to give the blessing to him directly. I was so relieved!

When I put the bag of baked goods into the hands of the pastor he asked me why I did this. I replied, “Because I love you and you are my brother in Christ.” This was spoken from the depths of my Spirit. I love this couple like they are my family. I am deeply grateful for this church because it has caused me to seek worship with Christ in such a way that I have no bondage of sin or pretense of appearance when I am worshiping.

In my study of God’s Word this morning I was studying the church of Ephesus. This church has died and the city of Ephesus is in ruins.

Why did it die? Because it lost it’s first love which was a love of Christ. The love of Christ is what feeds the growth of church but if that love does not blossom into love for others it is like a vine with no leaves.

Most Christians in America are concerned about the threat of Isis on the church. I would encourage fellow Christians to be more concerned over what actually causes death in a church. Isis can not kill us, we are assured eternal life through the blood of Christ which covers our sins. A lack of genuine love for our Savior and others is what will do us in.