Did He really say that?

I have been looking through the statements of Jesus to the Asian churches that were just one good generation into the life of the church that we find in Revelation 2 & 3. Frankly, it scares me to begin to think that if Jesus could say such strong words to churches one generation in, what might He need to be saying to churches 2000 years in the journey.

To the church in Ephesus, He offers words of affirmation and praise for the "good works" that they have done. But then he says, "I have this one thing..." You recall it to be that the chruch had left it's "first love". O.K., I can see a place here for a little redirectring, but Jesus says, in effect,"It really does not matter what else you have right, if you don't get this right, I am taking the lamp and moving out."

Could He really mean that? If we dare to anser yes, then we must allow the Holy Spirit to unpeel the layers of satisfaction about what we are dealing with today. Is it still possible that Jesus' approach might be that we could do our good stuff, but He has no real need of it and He has chosen another lampholder?

I guess what scares me most in light of this passage is that it seems to me we are comfortable with knowing that we have deffeciencies in our obedience to Jesus, but we gloss them over with "the good stuff we are doing". There are some things that are not optional for churches and for disciples of Jesus. I personally need more prayer and much more vigilance that I don't allow myself to judge what would be "suitable" for Jesus' approval. Jesus is the judge of that, and He seems at ease in making that known.

I have been thinking about what it must have been like to be a part of the Jewish religious system in the days of the Prophets. I wonder how convinced that they may have been that nothing is really wrong. Everything was working well. There did not seem to be a lack of sacrifices, the services were going along quite well. In fact I can just imagine a fair amount of both resistance and resentment to these men who said that there was a problem and the problem was that God had vacated the religous system. In fact God was pretty upset that it appeared to Him that He had now come to be of little importance at all.
Can you hear what some of the Temple conversations might have included? Maybe disdain for these troublers of the system?
If there may be any accuracy in these thoughts, what would make it unreasonable to assume that the religious community would not always be going thru those times of drifting away from God and not even being aware?
The only resolution for Isreal was a call to repent. It seemed an almost impossible task to bring about then, let us pray that it will not be so difficult this time.