Returning To Our First Love
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 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. Revelation 2:4-5 (KJV)
“First love” speaks of the attitude you had when you first fell in love with Jesus and you loved Him with your entire being. He was King and was enthroned on the throne of your heart. You had no other god before Jesus, so you obeyed and followed Him with complete surrender. We’ve all been guilty in some way or another of unintentionally leaving our first love. How can we get back to it?
Remember/ Rekindle
We must remember how we first met Jesus. We cannot lose sight of the fact that we loved Him because He first loved us. We were so thankful that He saved us from ourselves, sin, satan, and the world. Nothing else mattered because He captured our hearts and we were totally His. We just wanted to be with Him.
Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. II Timothy 1:6 (KJV)
This verse tells us to stir ourselves up, or rekindle the fire. Let your love for Jesus burn again. Let your passion for Christ be ablaze. Rekindle the embers of your love, fan the flame, and keep your love for Christ burning bright. As we remember how we loved Jesus at the first, this will stir our love for Him back up.
Repent
As we remember and rekindle, we must repent, or have a change of mind and go in another direction. We must be running back to Him, repentant enough to fall in love with Him all over again. Our goal must be to only desire, love, and worship Jesus. We must turn from all that drew us away from intimacy with the Lord, and draw near to Him with all our hearts, forsaking all that would distract us. We must repent of anything that offended Jesus and made Him jealous for us with a jealous love.
Renew
Finally, we renew our first works, once again doing what we did when we first fell in love with Jesus. We spend time with Him, and make our relationship with Him new again. We give, pray, study, worship, and all the things the Word instructs us to do. We do good works to bless others and advance the kingdom of God.
As we remember/rekinlde, repent, and renew, we will return to our first love with Jesus. As we take the conscious steps to return to Jesus, our love for Him will go back to the same intense level it was when we were first saved. Jesus always loves us and we must maintain our love for Him and refuse to leave our first love.
