Remember your first love…
When I was a little girl, I had dreamed of having a horse, so when I woke up on Christmas morning to find a horse standing by a tree in our backyard, I felt as if I had to be the happiest nine-year-old on the planet. Ace was a Tennessee Walker and a gentle giant at just above 17 hands tall. Every day for the first two years of having Ace, I would count down the minutes until my dad was finished working so we could go to the barn and ride. But then, as I got a bit older and school got harder with more homework, the stress of having so much to finish in the evenings took its toll, and I began to lose my zeal for going to the barn every evening. Yet, I did anyway, not because my heart was in it and I really wanted to, but because my dad expected me to go. The excitement and love that I had once experienced had been replaced by the monotony of a required daily routine.
In the first part of the book of Revelation, Jesus addresses seven different churches, the first of which is the church in Ephesus. Jesus commends this church for their good works, effort, and perseverance, as well as their wise discernment in recognizing false teaching. However, Jesus warns them that they have left their first love. In Revelation 2:5, Jesus admonishes them by saying, “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent” (KJV). He wants their deeds to be a result of their sincere love for Him, so first, He calls them to remember. Second, he calls them to repent. He does not want robots going through the motions, nor does He have a desire for synthetic fruit that looks good but produces no seeds. He wants genuine fruit that comes from real faith. He wants them to have the same sincere excitement and joy that they had when they first trusted in Him. Third, after they recall that initial love and joy they experienced when they came to know Christ, and they change their hearts and minds to reflect that love and joy, He calls them to do those deeds with the same passion as they did at first. (See Revelation 2:1-7).
Through the prophet Hosea, God reveals how He feels about insincere rituals. In Hosea 6:6, He says, “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (KJV). Foremost, God longs for our love. He wants us to seek a relationship with Him… to know Him.
In my opening story, I had lost the joy that I had felt in the first several years of riding my horse. I was still spending time with my horse and doing what was expected of me as a horse owner. However, that’s as far as it went. Just as I had long forgotten the excitement that had sent my head into the clouds that Christmas morning in 1985, Jesus was warning the Ephesians not to forget that first love.
May we never fall into a pattern of going through the motions, but may our hearts truly be on fire with our love for Jesus so that it radiates in all that we say and do.
