First Love
I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. . . . 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 from your first love! Turn back to me again. Revelation 2:2, 4-5
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First love, someone once said, is abandoning all for a love that has abandoned all. It refers to such deep devotion to Christ that we will abandon everything for the One who gave his life for us. Maybe when you first surrendered to Christ, you couldn’t wait to spend time with Jesus; you read the Bible hungrily, and you hung on every word. Then you got busy working for the Lord, and along the way you lost the freshness of basking in his presence. People and responsibilities began to take first place. The Lord commended the believers for working hard, persevering, and patiently suffering without giving up, but he was also calling them and all Christians throughout history back to that first loving and vital relationship with him. How encouraging that though we can’t force or fabricate this kind of love, Christ our bridegroom is always there wooing us back to him!
Prayers:
LORD, I confess that I have been working for you and “doing” a lot but have lost the simple devotion of loving you. Thank you that you are ever calling me back to intimacy with you. Thank you for your arms that are open wide to receive me. Help me to once again abandon myself to you, to experience your unfailing love for me, and to live in pure devotion close to your heart.
Quotes:
We must spiritually renounce all other loves for love of God or at least so hold them in subordination to this that we are ready to forego them for its sake; yet when we find God, or, rather, when we know ourselves as found of him, we find in and with him all the loves which for his sake we had foregone.
Sir William Temple (1628–1699)
The One Year Bible Readings for today are: Amos 1:1–3:15; Revelation 2:1-17; Psalm 129:1-8 and Proverbs 29:19-20.
