losing your first love

It has been awhile!  Sorry I have not been on to update this, but life gets crazy.  No more excuses.  I was pushed to update this by a couple family members who was asking when I was going to update this blog.  I appreciate that for a couple reasons:  1) It is nice to know that there is someone out there reading.  2) It is great to have a family that loves the Lord, and it was great to fellowship with them over the New Years Weekend.   New Years was a great time to think about change.  That is the time of year that everyone makes their New Years Resolutions.  It was a great time to remind myself of how change happens and where the power of change comes from. (see previous post for more detail and thoughts on change)  One thing that I was encouraged by is Eph 1:19-21, where it talks about how if we are saved we have the same power that raised Christ from the dead and placed him on the thrown available to us.  That is GREAT!  That means not only have we been give forgiveness but we also have available the power to live a victorious life!  May you find encouragement through that today.
 
Now to what I wanted to talk about today.  In my own quiet time I have started reading through the Book of Revelation.  This will be a new challenge for me because this is a book that I really have not studied a whole lot in my life.  As I came to chapters 2 and 3, I decided to study and meditate on one church’s letter a week.  This week I have been thinking about the letter to the Church in Ephesus.  The Lord starts out by commending them for their work and perseverance.  They have been able to test and point out false teaching.  They have had some persecution that they have been able to withstand.  However, the Lord rebukes them because they had lost their first love.  What does that mean?  I have been thinking about this the past few days.  If you go back to the letter Paul wrote them, it talks a lot about Unity and living as children of light through a life of love.  There is great love for Christ in our hearts when we first come to know him and that love should be shared with others.  However, for a lot of people and this church that love was lost…Why?  If I could read into the fact that they were very knowledgeable about Scriptures and that they were able to withstand several tests, I have come to a few thoughts.  Somewhere along the way of them studying and being disciplined the Christian walk became a routine, a process, a bunch of facts.  Spiritual disciplines are something that is talked about a lot in the Christian walk.  Things like reading your Bible, prayer, worship, fellowship, etc. I am one that will talk about them with the teens.  They are good things to develop in your Christian walk if they are a means not an end. If they are an end, the same result will happen in your life as did in the life of Church of Ephesus.  The Christian life will become routine, cold, and loveless.  If the disciplines are a means, then they will be a great benefit to enhance your love for the Lord and others.  Love is not a feeling, it is a choice.  With that in mind the more we know about the Lord should strengthen the choice we have to love Him.  Also, the more we know about him the more we should want to fall in love with him.  The same way a husband and wife should love their spouse more the more they know them.  Maybe that is the difference right there.  When the disciplines are to gain knowledge about Him; that is just what we get: knowledge.  When the disciplines are there to know Him, we are able to grow closer and closer and more in love with Him.  It reminds me of a line in a TV show the other day. I can’t remember what show it was but they were talking about the existence of God.  Within the conversation one person asked it they think God is out there.  The other responded, “I don’t know, but I miss Him.”  Hmmm.  I wonder how many believers would say something similar.  Have you said that lately?
 
Have you lost your first love?  Do you need to re-evaluate you spiritual disciplines, and allow them to be a means to an end?  Do you need to develop spiritual disciplines in your life, so your love for the Lord will not be so shallow? 
 
I pray you will love Him more and more each day!
Pastor Matt

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