a life of suffering, encounter with God, our dedication to God, time for God,
For all of us who once lived a life of suffering and despair, in search for the relief of our pain and having finally found the benevolence of Jesus, can understand the concept of being in our first love. At the moment of our encounter with God, we are restored and finally find peace. We are born again and live a new episode of innocence, much like when we were children. We see everything in our new lives with purity and excitement, and nothing is a burden. We have pleasure in giving our time and energy and even when we cannot give we genuinely wish we could.
Serving God is always a pleasure, especially when it involves the propagation of His Word. In this moment of our lives, everything revolves around His will and the saving of souls who are suffering out there without knowing God’s power, just as we were one day. We are always excited to do things for Jesus and everything we do we see as Holy. These are symptoms of a person who is grateful to God for everything that He has done in our lives, so we find a way of giving back to Him even though our actions are infinitely small compared to His. But as time passes, many people let their first love diminish and they end up having other priorities in life.
“Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” (Revelation 2:4)
When we lose the first love, serving God becomes a burden. We become weary of even going to church. We deny time for God and start taking time for ourselves and we look at everything with malice. We become problematic and find excuses for everything. But the real reason for losing the first love is because in the beginning everything was new. Once the novelty wears out, we get tired of serving the One who delivered us from a life of suffering. We don’t realise we were being driven by the emotions of change and we forget that serving God has nothing to do with emotions. It is all about faith! That is why when we are not in our first love, we put ourselves in a dangerous position. It means we are not believing as we should, so we abandon the love and dedication we had before, and we start placing other things above God in our lives. And we consciously do so, even if we are reluctant to admit it.
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place – unless you repent.” (Revelation 2:5)
If we compare our dedication to God today to what we used to do in the past, we can have a very accurate perspective of where we stand. More important still, the best indicator of someone who is not in their first love is the lack of passion for souls. The passion to help the suffering and tell them about Jesus is the first gift we receive after a true encounter with God. If you are not excited about the things of God anymore or your passion for souls is diminished, you are not in your first love. As the Bible passage above states, God holds this against you. But you have the chance to change that. Repent from the coldness that you have allowed to prevail in your heart, abandon the things that have distracted you, and go back to doing the first works. You will see that God will revive you in full.
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