The 7 Churches

Over the course of 2023 God placed within me:

1. A strong understanding that the time is now for those who left the church to come back and for the church to experience revival.

2. God needs “The Church” to be in a place of strength now more than ever.

3.There is no more important time in history than now to be making sure we are living for and serving God as well as winning others to Him.

This has prompted in me to study the 7 churches in Revelation 2 & 3.

1. All 7 churches have characteristics of “The Church” of today. We who consider ourselves Christians, are part of “The Church” of today. “The Church encompasses all church denominations and cultures who preach Christ crucified, etc. (The loveless, persecuted, compromising, corrupt, dead, faithful, lukewarm)

2. Because He says at the end of every church description. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” That means he is talking to everyone. Do you have an ear? Do I have an ear? Is there something in me that needs to change when I read any of these church descriptions? I can personalize this and see how I need to be warned that I should not allow corruption or compromise to enter my life. I need to ask myself the question am I on fire or have I allowed myself to become lukewarm? Has my love grown cold? Am in danger of spiritual death?

3. Good news! God doesn’t give a warning to every church without hope. He says each time “Those who endure to the end” this tells me 1. People will endure till the end. 2. There are people who won’t endure to the end. Which do I want to be? Which do you want to be?

4. Even in the 2 churches he doesn’t have anything against, (The faithful church and the persecuted church) He gives the understanding you still need to be faithful to the end, meaning, no one is above slipping. We have to be on guard so that we don’t fall away.

5. We are given warning but equally given opportunities to be overcomers, victorious, and conquerors. There is hope.

As I’ve studied these 7 churches, God is now prompting me to dive in to these to subjects/ questions:

1. At what point do you go from being part of ‘The Church” to being just part of the world?

2. A study on “the love of many will grow cold” scripture found in Matthew 24 where the last days are discussed and the dead church found in Revelation.

3. The correlations between the 7 churches in Revelation to the scriptures in 2 Timothy 3 and Matthew 24 which both discuss end times last days behavior of people and happenings in the word.