Your questions are so varied and some appear easy and some are not so easy. When these appeared I was not too sure about whether they were easy or challenging. I will let you decide!

Why do we love the Lord Jesus Christ and how do we love the Lord Jesus Christ, and how do we know when we love the Lord Jesus Christ? This could take up a whole term at Bible College, or perhaps even an entire lifetime of discipled and disciplined experience.

The Church of Jesus Christ was birthed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and we are also called to be followers or disciples of Jesus.

Salvation and faith and being rescued from sin is indeed very much an individual thing, but it is much more than being an individual thing, and that is why disciples of Jesus must belong to a local fellowship of believers.

Over these past forty years I have emphasised the need of belonging to the local Church. That is vital. I have never met an effective disciple of Jesus Christ who is not a committed member of the local body and who is serving in that local fellowship loyally and faithfully.

Jesus Christ gave these seven letters in the book of Revelation to seven churches and as you read them you see how crucially important the local fellowship was and is.

Jesus speaks specifically to these believers and there is a variety of emotions and instruction depending upon the specific need.

We read of how Jesus commends the disciples and then Jesus has a word of condemnation when he sees the needs of the church at Ephesus for example, and these were people who had loved Jesus Christ but had lost their first love. He then has to command them.

Many people like to be commended but how many even in the Church like to be rebuked and commanded. Some run a mile when that happens. I have seen it. They are off. They vanish. They scarper.

Jesus looks for people whose love is real and strong and who have not lost that first love. Read this challenging letter in Revelation Chapter 2.

How do we get our first love back? We remember what we were once like and then we repent and return.

I understand there are some churches where repentance is hardly who is jesus  in these present times. That must be a most serious omission.

If love wanes and becomes weak, our light can soon go out. The flame can flicker and can no longer be used to light the darkness around us. In how many nations is that presently the very situation? Where there is little love there will be little light.

We love Jesus because Jesus Christ has rescued us from our sin and sins and it is through Jesus Christ that we are born again and given this wonderful new birth.

All this happens because Jesus Christ first loved us and yes he does look for a response that is not timid or feeble.

We love Jesus first and then we love our brother. John writes about this in his gospel and also in his three letters and he does do quite clearly and specifically.

Have a good look into your own heart. Are you a faithful loyal disciple of Jesus Christ and are you someone can be depended upon and relied upon utterly and totally in your local fellowship?

Not only are these questions challengingly good but the answers we give are equally important.

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Prison, and Nairn Academy, and serves on The Children's Panel in Scotland, and has travelled extensively over these past years teaching, speaking, in America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most recently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the poor areas surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu