Your First Love

Every once in a while I flip through and read Revelation. I don’t do it too often because I don’t like taking pills for headaches but still…there are some things to be learned there. Revelation 2:4-5 has been plaguing me. “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” There are a lot of different things to take from this exclamation made by Jesus, but I’d like to focus on the last part, “do the things you did at first.” What does this mean in our lives?

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,” – Matthew 28:18-19. Mark puts it as “Go into all the world,” both of which I really like. Simply…Jesus says, “Go!” I have to ask who this call is for. Just the Apostles? Evangelistic ministers? Ministers in general? Or…every knee that is bowed to Jesus Christ?

A few weeks ago I took my teens on their “Search and Rescue” Fall Retreat. They were reminded of, as Revelation puts it, their first love. They were reminded of what they were called to do. Our fifth and final session, “Search and Rescue is What We Do…it is What He Did,” with a major focus on, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.”

I love the first six chapters of Isaiah. As it builds up, God is standing up in front of us, the world falling apart behind Him, “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"” – Isaiah 6:8.

Isaiah answered the call. I answered the call when I put Christ on in Baptism. You have answered the call. Much like Jesus calling on the church in Ephesus, we need to examine ourselves to see if we have forsaken our first love…to see if we are doing the things we were called to do at first…not just as a church but as individuals. We often hide under the umbrella of “church” and say, “we have answered the call” when in reality we are letting others do the work for us. Let us remember Jesus, our First Love, and do what He has called us to do. Let’s GO!