Getting Back to Your First Love

February 1, 2010

I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance . . . You have patiently suffered for me without quitting. But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. Revelation 2:2-5 NLT

This warning to the church in Ephesus is sobering, and the enemy is fighting hard to dull you, but God knows how to rouse your heart and stir you up to the fiery potential for which you’ve been designed and created.

If you’ve let your Christian life become blasé, remember from where you have fallen and go back to the things you did at first. Identify the things God has called you to do (including loving Jesus with all your heart) and drop the works you’ve picked up along the way that are not what God intended you to carry.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

God is calling us to humble our hearts, remove obstacles, and recommit to walking in love. After all, God is love, and one of the most purposeful things we can do is learn to cultivate this extraordinary love. This God kind of love, agape love, is not just an ordinary expression based on emotion or reserved solely for our nearest and dearest. We are to extend this eternal love of God to our neighbors, our enemies, and the entire world.

Don’t let John 3:16 become religious rhetoric. Instead delve into the Word and rediscover the profound truth of God’s eternal love for you.

We love, because God first loved us!
Pastor Jeff Perry

Copyright © 2010 St. Louis Family Church. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.