Renewing the First Love
Kalangan Sendiri

Renewing the First Love

Yenny Kartika Official Writer
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Revelation 2:4

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.

 

Bible Reading for a Year [bible]psalm85[/bible]; [bible]roman13[/bible]; [bible]deute17-18[/bible]

 

Through God's great desire to be loved by his people, we have been given free will to choose to whom we would invest our love. God, who created us out of pure love, clearly knows that not all of us will choose to love Him.

We can see how the Lord suffers while watching His children choose to love other people first; they love perishable ideas and temporal goods. Yet He has shown his great love by responding to our sins with the blessing and His mercy at all times.

The most expensive price of the redemption of our sins is the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. There may be times when we feel sorry for ourselves for a moment of time, and then back again idolizing many things in life; searching for satisfaction and love of creation instead of the Creator. That's why we need to renew our first love, a love that is placed only by God.

In Revelation 2:4, the church of Ephesus was severely rebuked. “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” Yes, they kept their faith, but their love of God has faded away. This is the most important part of the relationship of God with His people: How we love God. Because the most important commands as what Jesus has commanded us is, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27).

Loving God is our first priority. Our love for God is the basis of all life's journey. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-3, briefly stated the importance of having love through speaking and acting. Because God is love, and if love is fading from our hearts then life will mean nothing. God lives in our hearts, and He wants to love as well as to be loved by His children.

Too often we measure our relationship with God based on how often we go to church, how many mission trips we've done, how many people we’ve won, or how much donations we’ve given to the house of the Lord.

But God is like the father in the prodigal son story, who welcomed the returning of his youngest child and celebrated it with a party. He is the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to find the lost one. He waits patiently every day to show the deep of His love. Let's re-encounter with God and allow His love to renew our first love ever experienced with Him.

 

Experience the love of God is the beginning and end of everything we do as His children.

Ikuti Kami