95 ARE YOU LISTENING F O O T ================================
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READING
95 ARE YOU LISTENING?
PRAY Help me Lord, to obey you and learn the path I should follow. (Psalm 25:12). —————————————————————- READ Revelation 3:1-22. —————————————————————- THINK Does this passage give you an important or new insight into yourself? What is it? —————————————————————- FOCUS Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation contain seven letters. These John was to write in a book (1:11), and send to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. In these notes, we shall comment upon just three of them. SARDIS – WHERE THE BOOKS WERE COOKED (1-6). Sometimes auditors discover that a company has been made to look as if it was making a profit when in fact it was bankrupt. That’s how it was with the church at Sardis. Things looked flourishing – services well attended, no shortage of funds, eloquent sermons, and all the trimmings of success. ‘That’s a LIVE church’, people said. ‘That’s a DEAD church’, said the all-seeing Lord – and his is the assessment that matters. But there were a few faithful believers left and they were the church’s last hope (2). PHILADELPHIA – TRADING AT A PROFIT (7-13). Remember Christ’s parable of the talents? The man who took the one talent and made nine more by trading? The church at Philadelphia was like that. They had ‘little’, but they made the most of what they had (8). LAODICEA – THE WORST FAILURE OF ALL (14-22). The Lord keeps his strongest condemnation till last (16). The church at Laodicea was pleased with itself; it seemed to have been content to carry on in a relaxed and respectable way. But Christ saws that it was simply not taking him seriously. It is as if he says, ‘I’d rather you reject me altogether than treat me as a kind of optional extra to living . . . ‘ Can you see how this same principle might apply to your life? —————————————————————- PRAISE Forgive my half-heartedness, Lord; fill me with such love for you that I may give you all there is of me.