In Revelation 2:1-7, we read the letter to the church in Ephesus, a cosmopolitan port city where intellectual and religious currents were always trying to divert the faith of the Christians. Jesus commended the Ephesian Christians for standing firm for the faith in such a difficult environment but called them back to something essential they had forgotten – love. Although truth and love are equally important, they are often difficult to keep together in practice. Like the Ephesians, we need to make sure we maintain faith in the truth and practice love for God, for each other, and for our neighbor.
The proclamation of the King’s word provokes two opposite responses.
In Jonah 3, we find that God did not give up on Jonah or on the people of Nineveh, which encourages us to believe...
Even though his people grumbled and quarreled, the Lord satisfied their needs at his own expense.