Restoring Your First Love
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:4, NIV)
Teaching:
- Recognize that you have lost the initial fervor.
The first step to restoring our love for God is acknowledging that we have allowed that love to grow cold. Often, work, worries, and daily routines cause our spiritual fervor to diminish. Just as Jesus told the church in Ephesus, we must examine our hearts and admit when our love is no longer as intense as it once was. - Remember from where you have fallen.
Jesus urges us to remember where we have fallen from. We should reflect on those times when our love for God was passionate, when we longed to spend time with Him, to pray and read His Word. By recalling those moments, we can rediscover the passion that once motivated us to seek Him with all our hearts. - Repent and change course.
Jesus not only calls us to remember but also to repent. This involves changing our way of thinking and acting. If we have distanced ourselves from our first love, we must repent of the distractions or priorities we have placed above our relationship with God and refocus our hearts on Him. - Return to doing the first works.
After repentance, the call is to return to doing the first works, the things we did when our love for God was pure and passionate. This means restoring spiritual disciplines: prayer, Bible study, worship, and serving others. In doing so, our love for God is rekindled. - Love others as you did at the beginning.
Love for God must always be accompanied by love for others. In restoring our first love, we should also seek to restore our relationships with others, showing the same love and compassion we had when our hearts were filled with Christ’s love.
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:4, NIV)
Think about it:
- At what point did you feel your love for God start to cool, and what factors contributed to it?
- What steps can you take today to rekindle that initial love for God and for others?
- How can you return to doing the first works and restore your spiritual passion in your daily life?
