Evangelists stand at the edge of the Church with their eyes on a fallen world. Those with this gift long for any opportunity to give a message to lead souls to their Lord. It is a gift which is incredibly focused. It is a gift which seems, to those of us on the outside, to be almost an obsession at times. There is a driven nature to the role of evangelist. They are restless and never satisfied, aware of the throng of people in need of their loving Saviour.
But there is a beautiful gift that they also give to us as church. It is echoed in many verses in the Old Testament – the return. Time and again the people of God wandered away from their first love. And time and again the prophets called them back to their God. (Zechariah 1:3b, Lamentations 3:40, 2 Chronicles 30:9b, Isaiah 44:22, Joel 2:12, Hosea 14:2, Jeremiah 3:12b)
In the New Testament Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son who left his Father’s household to experience all the pleasures of the world. After hitting rock bottom and without any money or support and having tasted all the world had to offer he ‘came to his senses’ and returned to his Father’s house. (Luke 15: 11-32) He was not alone in wandering from the Father’s love. Both sons had moved away from the Father’s heart. The other son saddened his Father by not understanding all that the Father had was his all along. This son had been serving his Father out of duty, not love, for reward, and not because he understood the Father’s heart of love.
Let us be like the Evangelist and focus again on our first love, that first choice to follow Jesus and recommit ourselves once more. This is the great gift that we can use to come back to the cross. Without the cross we would have been lost. So many of us still want to run from it. We need to be reminded not just of His pain, His sacrifice, but of the extraordinary love of the Father behind it.
Remember your first love always:
As Jesus said to the Ephesians
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. Revelation 2:4-5a