Return to Your First Love

In Revelation 2:2-4, the Lord sends this message to Ephesus, “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars, and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love.”

God acknowledged the good works and deeds of Ephesus’s people, but he criticized them for one thing – they left their first love.

I remember my first love for God.

I could not wait to be in church.

I could not wait to be with God’s people.

I assumed I knew nothing and that everyone else was so much wiser and so I drank up their words and instruction as if it were the sweetest thing on earth.

I took secular posters from my bedroom walls and put up inspirational ones, (this was in the mid-seventies when kids lined their bedroom walls with florescent posters then turned on black lights after dark to enjoy the glow.)

I went to an Easter Sunrise Service the first year I was “saved,” sat in the pouring rain but appreciated so much the chance to be with God’s people at sunrise on Easter Sunday.

I was happy, and I was in love, not a schoolroom crush, but in love with the living God.

That was my first love.

As those days and my adolescence passed into adulthood, I decided I wanted to be a minster.

I went off to seminary and studied.

I learned to interpret the Bible “properly.”

And I learned the business of the church.

Somewhere along the line, I lost that initial innocent enthusiasm, my first love.

God doesn’t need the things we do or the money we give.

What God most desires is our hearts.

It’s good that we can demonstrate patience, or stand in the face of evil, or understand doctrine well enough to know when we aren’t hearing the truth, but do we also love God?

Are we passionate about God?

Do we long to be with Him, sit at his feet like Mary, or are we too busy like Martha?

I would encourage you to reflect on your early days and remember your first love, then ask God to stir that love in your heart once again.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you really could feel that way again?

You can.

Much love,

David Dellman