First Love

Revelation 2:4

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

A life desires God more and more, will gain Him more. One that desires Him less and less is getting exactly what they seek.

For many Christians, when they first enter into the lifelong walk with Christ, they have such a passion and zeal for Him. However, as time goes on we begin to lose that love and passion. We desire Him less and that is exactly what we are getting. Jesus is calling many of us out. Family, it is so easy to lose sight of our first love. In a relationship  that takes place over many years between two people, there is an initial rush of emotion, they long for each other’s company, they love everything about each other and they can’t wait to hear each other’s voice, etc. But as time passes, they don’t have that same passion for each other. We have all seen or experienced relationships like this. May we not let this type of attitude invade our relationship with God. His love is all we need family. He is all we need. Yet we find ourselves living for everything else many times. God is our second, third, fourth love. Why not our first? Why, when we are honest with ourselves, do we find that other things and people are contending for the position of most importance in our lives? God should have no competition for that position! In comparison to our love for Him, it should seem that we hate everyone and everything else and even ourselves, as it talks about in Luke 14:25-33. Do we love God like this? If not, why? In the passage in Luke, Jesus CLEARLY states that in order to be a disciple of Him, we must count the costs of following Him, which are to love Him above ALL else and to replace us with Him by carrying our cross daily for Him, allowing no humiliation, personal plans, personal will, or anything else to obstruct our relationship to Him. Basically we must give Him our life and make Him first in our life in order to follow Him. Family, may we not forsake our first love, but may we come back to Him and His open arms and carry on with Him being faithful until death (Revelation 2:26), bringing Him pleasure in us.

To our first true love we must return. To God we must run back to. To the cross we must embrace persistently.

-Ryan