Return to God 2
By Ivan Ho 01 Jan 2026
First of all, I would like to wish everyone Happy New Year! May this year be one that you and I will enter into all that God has planned for us in 2026 and beyond!
At the turn of the year, one of the keys for us to enter into God’s grace and abundant life is for us to TURN, or REPENT.
Return to God and He will return to you!
Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
The above passage is Jesus speaking to the apostle John who delivered His words to the church of Ephesus.
After some words of commendation and encouragement, God began to speak words of rebuke and correction out of His love for His church. The church of Ephesus had done well in many areas, in their labour and perseverance and in exposing false apostles in their midst, but God went on to say: “Nevertheless I have this against you, that YOU HAVE LOST YOUR FIRST LOVE“. God is not talking about loosing that loving feeling towards God but instead, He said: “From where you have FALLEN, repent“.
There was a place and point in time from where we have fallen, and we need to identify what it is. Otherwise we would be going around in circles trying to feel the love of God, only to loose it again. We can recollect our focus and passion towards God by putting on worship music, or reading the bible and pray, which is great and we should do that.
But that is not repentance unless we know what is the root cause of what make us turn away from God in the first place, so we can turn away from the wrong things, wrong directions, wrong deeds, wrong people…, and turn back to God again.
For the church of Ephesus, the wrong deeds were the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which were eating food sacrificed to idols, and sexual immorality.
But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
They knew God hated the deeds of the Nicolaitans and they hated it as well. Nevertheless, they did the very things that God hated . Why? Because they had not allowed God to deal with their sinful nature, the sins of the flesh, their attachment to false gods and false doctrines.
Every time when we sin, we confess our sins and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from our sins. That is the truth.
The problem is, we oftentimes talk ourselves into downplaying the sins that God hates, so we would justify ourselves to continue sinning in the same areas again and again, with no sense of repentance at all. That is a very dangerous state of mind to be in, thinking that “It’s no big deal…God understands”. “Consulting fortunetellers? No big deal. Sex before marriage? No big deal, It’s all covered under the blood!”
Confessing our sins will lead us to forgiveness but only through repentance will we be brought back to God’s perfect will and plan for our lives.
Without repentance, we continue to live in cycles of defeat. Without repentance, we are kept away from God’s destinies for our lives. Without repentance, we are deceiving ourselves.
Repentance isn’t just feeling remorseful about our sins. Real repentance is a change of mind that leads to one’s decisions to stop doing wrong things with the wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, in disobedience to the word of God. Real repentance is to take actions to turn away from the wrong directions we were making and turn back to God and to His plans and purpose for our lives!
Saul felt remorseful about his sins of idolatry and witchcraft but he never repented. He just carried on doing business as usual despite the fact that prophet Samuel had left him, but tragically, the Spirit of God had left him as well.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
If we are born again in Christ and filled with the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit doesn’t leave us every time we sin. So what does it mean when Jesus says: “unless you repent, I will remove your lampstand from its place?“