I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance… Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Revelation 2:2,4

Last time we saw that while we might be doing ‘Christian things’ if we are still the center of our vision—if we’re still the definer of our dreams and goals—we are going to waste a lot of time, energy and emotion shackled to fruitless pursuits. We superglue ourselves to futility. We build an insurmountable wall between ourselves and our first love.

That’s because we’re giving Jesus competition in our focus and that’s idolatry. You see, the kind of idol that sidetracks us doesn’t matter; it’s that Jesus isn’t at the bullseye of our vision. Picture an archery target with all its concentric circles and in the center is the bullseye. That target represents all that God is doing.

People who are really not pursuing God at all are shooting off the target completely and we’re not talking about them. We’re looking at people like the Ephesians who Jesus is talking to. Today’s verses show that they’re really doing well, but they’ve got to return to their first love.

So in our analogy, they’re at least hitting the target. Jesus is telling them, that hitting the outer circle will get them some satisfaction, the acclaim of their church-mates, but it’s not where they could be. It’s not where He’s calling them.

You see, the outer circles are what God is doing. But Jesus wants us to get back to the bullseye where we started.

For many of us, our hopes and dreams are in the outer circles. We want to see Jesus’ Kingdom come and we want to be part of it like the Ephesians were. We might want to lead the charge. This is the place where we want to be for a lot of reasons some goodish (look at the needs), some selfish (this where it’s exciting, flashy, and fun). But this is not where we started, in the bullseye. It’s not where we abide in a first-love experience.

Everything we do for Jesus starts and ends in the bullseye. We start to wander from our first love when we our focus is on accomplishing outer circle tasks. The outer circle is God’s, and He alone is responsible for it. He sends His people to work in those outer circles, but it’s not up to us, it’s up to Him. That’s why Philip could walk away from an amazing revival in Samaria to hang out in the desert (Acts 8). His first love was Jesus, not the revival.

Our accomplishments are Jesus’. People who have wandered from their first love, on the other hand, are the ones desperately try to bring something into fruition in the outer circles. It’s our attempt to do what only God can do. We strive when we attempt to accomplish outer circle tasks.

The outer circles are for God and God alone. The outer circles are for Him to accomplish, or if He wants to share the work with us, it’s for Him to reveal it to us in His own timing. Jesus already told His disciples this: “Without me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Without being in the bullseye with Jesus we can’t hurry or rush or hustle enough to accomplish outer circle tasks. When we attempt to do this, we wander further and further from our first love.

The opposite of all this outer circle distraction, of course, is rest (Matt 11:29). And we rest most easily, in the bullseye of our first love.