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The Seven Churches in Revelation

Oct20

By Eric Sponheim

Note from Sharon: My husband, Eric, studied and wrote this paper while taking a theology class. I wanted to share this with you, because I believe there is a lot of good information that as Christians, we should pay attention to. I will be posting about each church every few days until we go through all seven churches. Thank you.

INTRODUCTION

Chapters two and three in Revelation consist of the letters written to the seven churches.  While each letter addresses the condition of a specific geographical church, the warnings, encouragement, and promise given is for all of the body of Christ; as each letter states that anyone who has an “ear to hear” should “listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”  We are encouraged to listen to what is being said to ALL the churches, not just one; and not just the ones that sound good to us. 

At the end of each letter a promise is also given to those who overcome.  Each promise was different, but in each case the promise would only be given to those who overcame.  In these seven letters there are seven promises given to the church, but that also means there are seven things that we, the church, need to overcome.

What does it mean to overcome?  The Greek word (νικάω) used in all seven letters means to conquer.  It also means to triumph, subdue, overpower, or prevail.  No matter which word one chooses to use, it denotes a victory over something; but not without effort.  To overcome requires us to struggle with, to wrestle against, to fight against something.  Overcome is an action verb, it does not happen when one sits by idly, hoping it will happen; you have to put in the effort. 

To overcome something, we must first be in a battle, a challenge; or there will be nothing to overcome.  To repeat, overcoming is not passive, it is active.  We cannot overcome something by doing nothing, we have to be engaged in the struggle.   

A word of caution, we need to remember to seek the Lord as to how we should overcome each situation that arises.  There will be times that we need to stand, and wait, and let God fight for us.

EPHESUS

Rev 2:1-7

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this:  I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false, and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary.  But this I have against you, that you have left your first love.  Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place – unless you repent.  Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.

The Ephesians were still doing good works, and they weren’t buying into the slick talking, self-promoting, want to be leaders who came along.  They were also willing to put up with the persecution that came with being a Christian.  However, their relationship with God was fading.  They were doing all the good deeds, but it had become “because that’s what we do.”  They were, in many ways, just going through the motions.  Their “faith” had started to shift to a faith in “right” thinking and doing the “right” things. 

Their relationship with God had grown stale, they had kind of “figured God out”.  They “understood” what He expected from them, so there really wasn’t a need to spend as much time with God.     

It doesn’t matter how well we start, if we don’t finish well it will not have mattered.  It doesn’t matter how good our relationship with God once was, what matters is where our relationship is now; and where will it be in the future.

Often when we begin our relationship with God we are full of zeal.  There is a fire in us.  We can’t get enough of His Word.  We want to learn all we can.  Often, though, over time, that zeal begins to fade.  The cares and distractions of life begin to take priority.  Our relationship with God begins to take a back seat to everyday life.

Other times, our zeal can slowly turn to legalism, or religious ritual.  We begin to think that we “know God” and we have Him figured out, we have come to understand the truth.  The focus of our zeal can become distorted.  Our zeal shifts to the truths about God, the “dos” and “don’ts” from our understanding of the Bible.  We can become more concerned with protecting our version of the truth, than knowing the author of the truth.  Our love for the truth, should never overtake for love for the one who created the Truth. 

We need to overcome a complacent love that has become too familiar and is taken for granted.  We need to make the effort to have a strong relationship with God.  The Christian life is not about “figuring God out,” and understanding “the rules”.  It is about developing a relationship with God; this takes time spent together.  In this life we will never arrive at fully knowing God, so there is no stopping point where we can say we have arrived at fully knowing God.  Just like in a marriage, there will always be more to learn about our spouse.  As we spend time with them we begun to understand what they like and don’t like, what things their heart is drawn to.  Without spending time with our spouse, we will not know what they are thinking, what is in their heart; what are their concerns of the day.  Without spending time with God, we will not be able to hear Him; our heart will not be in tune with His heart

Nutshell for the church of Ephesus:  We need to overcome a complacent love that has become too familiar and is taken for granted.  We need to make the effort to have a strong relationship with God.

The Rat Race

Oct16

According to my 2006 Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, “rat race” is defined as “strenuous, tiresome, and competitive activity or rush”. Well, now, does that sound like Black Friday shopping or what? I chuckle as I write that, but it’s true. Recently I found myself going through a rat race, though I had no idea I even entered this race. How is that possible? It all started in the middle of August this year when my book, Love Waits: Book One was republished. I started to promote it on social media and follow people in hopes of “getting the word out” about the book – perhaps someone would buy it, right? Since I self-published through Covenant Books, I didn’t have a marketing team assigned to promote the book, I also didn’t have ad campaigns – just me and social media. I had taken about 3+ years off of social media until 2024 – so basically, I had zero social media presence as well. In hindsight, I see now that I could have/should have been promoting the book from the moment I signed the contract – that idea just never even occurred to me, to be honest. Since it has been 10 years since I first published Love Waits, it was basically like starting all over again at ground zero with a brand-new book.

If you read my blog, Let Your Light Shine, then you know that the first time I was published, I did every single thing that the publishing company told me to do to become a “successful author”. Needless to say, no, I don’t believe that I was a successful author – at least not by the standards that most people would consider “success”. (i.e. books on bestselling lists, awards, thousands of 5-star reviews, and let’s not forget the handsome royalty checks, right?)

When I started promoting my book in August, at first things were good and I was getting a lot of traction with it, especially on Instagram. However, then things started to slow down and I couldn’t figure out why; I wasn’t doing anything differently, so what happened? Before I knew it, I was big time overthinking this “book promotion situation”, which led to stress and an old familiar, yet uncomfortable feeling inside of me that I hadn’t experienced in over 8 years. I paused everything and went to God in prayer. In Scripture, God is known in many different ways, such as gardener (Genesis 2:8), healer (Exodus 15:26), judge, lawgiver, king (all at Isaiah 33:22) – so, why not as marketing manager? Do I have a Scripture reference for that? No. Do I need one? No, at least I don’t think so. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, I think if He wants to, He can promote anything or anyone as He sees fit. So, I gave it all over to God and started posting as He directed.

By the world’s standards, I wasn’t succeeding, because I didn’t post enough posts, or the posts weren’t reaching enough people, or some other nonsense that was not part of the equation with God. Once I started to follow what I believe was God’s leading for posting on social media, I just felt His peace. Later though, when I let the “worries of the world” (Mark 4:18-19) distract me, God had to remind me that He wasn’t asking for me to meet a quota for likes, shares, or comments with every post. God reminded me that He didn’t ask me to sell “X” number of books – I didn’t have a quota to fill there either. He reminded me that I am called to be obedient to Him. I post what I feel He is directing me to post and I even try to write what I feel He is directing me to write (just like now and in my books). Obedience to the Heavenly Father, that IS success! I didn’t need to add to it, nor was I supposed to cherry pick and do only what I wanted to do, what I felt comfortable with doing, or what was easy or convenient to do. I was just called to do His will and I want to answer that call every, single time.

As I have been writing this blog, it occurred to me that I was fixated on the wrong race. The rat race is the wrong race, the race that God has set before me, that is the race I should be focused on. Today I leave you with Galatians 5:16-17, which says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” (Bold print and italics are mine for emphasis.)

The Exploding Casserole Dish

Sep16

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

When I read the prompt for today,this memory came to mind, so here goes.

Years ago, money was tight and we had a family of 6 to feed. I don’t remember how we got a pork loin (Given to us? A great sale?), but I was cooking it for supper and felt very blessed to have this gift for our family. I cook pork loins (typically) in a shallow, glass 8×13 (ish?) pan. I also would add some water straight from the faucet into the pan during the cooking process. Now I had cooked pork loin like this for years; never had any problems and the pork loin was always moist.

Well…this particular time, I took the hot dish out of the oven, held it under the faucet, let just a little water go in the pan, I stepped back, turned towards the oven, and (🫣) the pan exploded into thousands of tiny shards! The pork loin fell to the floor with all the glass and I just stood there frozen with my hands in the oven mitts still in position holding the pan that was literally all over the floor! I was so shocked, stunned, and just couldn’t even process what just happened! I started looking over my arms and legs expecting glass shards to be embedded in me and you know what? Not…a…one. Hand to God, not one piece of glass “got” me. I was so thankful! However, I felt bad for ruining supper for the family.

That experience shook me for quite a while. I quit using my glass baking dishes and got rid of them. I know that was foolish because it was a user error as to this epic fail – don’t add cold water to hot glass! Over the years I bought more glass baking dishes and everything is good, but I don’t know that I will ever forget the exploding casserole dish in my hands.

The Race That Is Set Before Us

Sep3

The past three days had been quite challenging for me. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but I knew something was bothering me and I just couldn’t seem to get out of this “funk” I was in. It got worse and worse over the course of those three days – so bad that even I didn’t want to be around myself. I used to have this struggle off and on since coming to Christ, but I actually hadn’t experienced this in quite a long time. I thought I had remembered what the struggle was like, but until the past three days, I had somehow forgotten or just thought I knew. You know the saying, “the good, the bad, and the ugly”? Yea, the past three days got to a capital U-G-L-Y! I prayed, I read the Bible, I listened to ministering music, I talked things over with my husband (my best friend) – nothing was “working”. During these three days one thing that God had said to me was, “Manage your expectations.” When that was said, I took it in stride and was like “ok, done”. Oh dear, did I fool myself! At the end of the three days (yesterday evening) I finally had a breakthrough and realized that I was allowing things to affect my identity. I was leaving a door open to the enemy and the snake that he is slithered on in. (By the way, I HATE snakes!) I allowed my identity in the Father to be messed with. What was I thinking? Such foolishness and I know better, yet, it happened, and I allowed it to happen.

This past Thursday (pre-U-G-L-Y) I wrote and posted a blog that got a lot of traction on this website and on Instagram. I was shocked by how much attention it got. I am not the type of author who wins awards or is a best-selling anything. Nor do I write so eloquently that my words are quoted on social media or in movies. I am me; I am really only trying to please One, and that is the Heavenly Father whom I serve. I’ve never been in the spotlight, nor have I ever sought it out (plus I have astigmatism, the lights bother my eyes). If I were on a movie set, I would be the person that wouldn’t really be noticed; the person that didn’t even get her name in the credits – or maybe they did get my name in the credits but it would be misspelled, Sherman Sponge, lol, or something like that. But you know what? I’d be fine with that, because it’s really not about me.

The past ten years since the first release of “Love Waits”, I’ve had a lot of time to think, process, understand, and grow closer to God. So, when the blog got so much attention last week, I was taken aback. I believe – even though I’d rather not admit it, especially publicly – but I believe I allowed some stuff to go to my head. I truly didn’t mean to, I really don’t want to be that way (my husband wasn’t too fond of it either). Perhaps when a person doesn’t usually get attention, that when it happens (even on a small scale like mine was), that it can easily go to a person’s head. I have repented of this, I knew it was wrong, but until the Father pointed out to me exactly what was going on, I honestly couldn’t see it. (Should have been as obvious as a train wreck, right?) Like I’ve said for many years now: even if one is called to teach, we should all be students at all times and ready to learn.

If I’m being honest, I kind of didn’t want to write this blog, I mean really, would you want to share a U-G-L-Y moment you recently went through? But I knew that this was what God wanted and I knew I was going to do what He was telling me to do.

We moved to where we currently live just over 2 ½ years ago and the other day I finally got some wall décor put up. I unpacked the picture that I took for this blog because it really can sum up what we all need to do in our own walk with God. I hope that it can be an encouragement for you. Here is a “wider” scope of the Bible reference in the picture:

Hebrews 12:1-3 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” NASB