By: Steve Wilmot
What does God want from you? He wants the same thing you want from your spouse and children. He wants you to love him with everything you’ve got.
Does that surprise you? Maybe you thought he wanted your money. Or possibly service or church attendance or prayer or reading your Bible. But these things spring from the one thing he wants — your love.
Jesus reveals this longing for your love when he spoke to the Christ-followers in Ephesus. “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance.
I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary” (Revelation 2.2-3).
Jesus commends them for their works and perseverance. He lauds their doctrinal purity. He applauds them for not quitting even when they suffered because they were believers.
But then he says, “Yet I hold one thing against you” (Revelation 2.4). There was something he wanted more than all these wonderful things they were doing for him. One thing.
It’s the same one thing we read Jesus loved Mary for in Luke 10.38-42. The same one thing that touched God’s heart when David prayed for it in Psalm 27.4. It’s always the same. Always the one thing.
“You have forsaken the love you had at first” (Revelation 2.4). With all the “Christian” things they were doing, there was one thing he longed for more than any good work, and it was the one thing they had forsaken — they didn’t love him like they did at first.
The word translated “forsaken” has a variety of uses in biblical writing. It was sometimes used of someone who willingly turned his back on someone he once loved and walked away resulting in divorce.
The Ephesians Christians hadn’t gone that far, but Jesus felt a need to warn them they were walking a path that would lead to a casual love that eventually would turn them away from him all together. A “divorce” could be in the future unless they reversed course and worked on their love for him.
The word translated “forsaken” also meant omitted and neglected. It wasn’t intentional that their love slowly faded. They didn’t mean it to happen. But they got… busy and neglected to give their attention and feed their affection for Jesus.
Busy with the affairs of life. Busy with “church stuff.” Good stuff to be sure, yet it gradually turned their focus from loving Jesus.
Have you lost your first love? Have you gradually forsaken the love relationship with Jesus you had when you first decided to follow him? Have you focused more on doing than on relationships?
It’s a daily battle to avoid the drip, drip, drip of neglecting Jesus in lieu of endless activity. So, if that’s where you find yourself today, what do you do about it?
Jesus offers three helps to fall in love all over again. (By the way, these will work in a marriage, too.) “Remember the height from which you fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2.5).
One, remember. Take a few minutes, quit all activity, and think back. Think back to when you were head over heels in love with Jesus. When being with him was the best part of your day.
When you longed for more time together. When he was the one who was always on your mind. When he got the best of your attention and your affection, and everyone and anything else got the leftovers.
Do you remember those days? Weren’t they the best days of your life? When you pause to recall them, you want to feel that way again. A renewed desire drives you to restore the passion of those days.
Two, repent. Repentance brings sorrow over what you’ve done. That you’ve neglected him. That you’ve replaced him in your attention and affection with lesser things.
But repentance is more than feeling bad; it’s about reversing direction. It’s making a deliberate decision to fall in love with Jesus all over again the primary pursuit of your life.
So, you may be asking, how do I do that? What can I do to recapture that first love? That’s Jesus’ third help.
Three, redo. Do what you did when you were crazy in love with him. Did you spend long hours talking with him? Do it again. Did you get alone to read your Bible to learn more about him? Do it again.
The Bible was written primarily to let us get to know God better so we could love him completely? Most of us think the Bible provides the list of all the things God expects us to do. That’s why we tend to put activity for God ahead of loving God.
Did you hang out with a small group of friends who were also in love with Jesus? Get together again. Have you slowly drifted into the condition of the Ephesians? Have you forsaken the love you had before?
Heed Jesus’ warning and do whatever it takes to again love Jesus like you did at first.
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Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.
