Your First Love

I hear all the time people say they talk to God and pray, but do they listen? I hear people say they believe in God and love Him, yet they never (or rarely) spend time with Him or with His Word outside of the obligatory church service (if that).

You talk to your spouse every day don't you? You say you love your spouse and go out on dates, eat meals together, sleep in the same bed, live in the same house.....but do you treat them the same way you treat God?

Of course you don't! Unless angry at them for whatever, you make it a point to have a conversation with them. You set aside time to spend with them (if you have kids) and enjoy their company. If you are a wife, you even take on your husband's name with pride and joy. But do you take on the Name of Christ with that same warm love in your heart?

Do you ever yearn to be with Jesus, to spend time with Him alone? Do you ever desire to read His Word that He wrote....for you? What if you stopped speaking to your spouse for days, weeks, months, maybe even years? What if you no longer showed interest in spending time with them? What if every time they spoke to you, you acted like you didn't hear them? Or if you did hear them, you ignored what they said - and even did the opposite as if what they said didn't matter to you!

Do you see what I am saying here? I am disgusted at the church today because I hear over and over statistics that point at depravity and apostacy in the church. Every person I meet is quick to say they believe in God, love Jesus, go to such and such church.....yet, their hearts are FAR....far away from the Lord.

Do you not seek Him? Do you not yearn for Him? If you treated your spouse like you treat God, what would happen? Your spouse would probably divorce you and leave. The relationship at best would be toxic and unhealthy - leading to nothing good. Would it not?

So too it is with God. God forgives and his mercy is never ending, however, we still hold the choice of whether or not to belong to Him. Do not crucify the Lord all over again. Do not grieve His Holy Spirit, causing Him to eventually blot out your name from the Book of Life because you threw away and treated with indifference, a gift so precious.

This is different than a lost person remaining lost even after hearing the Gospel, someone who rejected it and continued in sin (seeds sown on the path that were eaten by birds). This is even more devastating because it shows that there are so many Christians who first knew Christ and received His Gospel with joy! But, they were distracted by the world and the things of it and gave their hearts away to those things instead (seeds sown both in the rocky places and the thorns).

The Lord became an afterthought to them, of no more importance than the old rag under the sink. He became just a figurehead, a theory, an idea, something you automatically say or do because it's expected of you - tradition. But reality tells a different story with their lack of spiritual fruit.

Are you one of them? When was the last time you prayed, truly talked to the Lord? And I don't mean prayed as in, you stood up in Sunday school this past Sunday and said, "Dear God, please heal Betty Sue and bless Preacher Bob as he gets up and teaches us today." I'm talking about real, raw, honest conversation with the Lord. Tears and weeping, praise and worship, taking your heart and giving it to Him in full surrender and laying out all of your prayers and petitions before Him, declaring that HIS will be done. When was the last time you did that? When was the last time you even desired to do that?

Sit there and seriously think about this. Many Christians are walking with a lukewarm or nonexistent faith right now because they have left their first Love. As a result they have blindly or even willingly gone after abominations (like the covid jab), they are participating in occult rituals, they seek out ear tickling false teachers, they fill their hearts and homes (and churches) with idols, they justify sin and wickedness that the world tells them is love and happiness..... Is this you?

I pray that everyone here can decide in their hearts this very day who they will serve, who they will love, and who they will seek for and yearn for. Jesus is waiting, but He will not wait forever. Those who failed to choose Him and those who failed to even choose at all - will be swept away with the wicked. What a grievous thought.

I will declare to you though some good news! If you choose Jesus, He will give you eternal life. If you run to Him with repentance and humility in your heart, He will forgive you. The time of gray areas and lukewarmness is very rapidly coming to an end. You will either belong to Christ, or you will not. Choose Him today! Return to your first Love, Jesus, and follow Him with obedience, love, worship, and endurance.

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

-Revelations 2:4-5