First Love

Jesus said to the church at Ephesus “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4 ESV

You may how wonder does someone abandon their first love?

My husband and I have been married 10 years, Many years ago someone gave Rob and I the Love Dare book for Christmas. It's a 40 day bible based challenge that helps reignite the passion and fire in your marriage. Little did we know at that time that we would go through a season where we needed it. 

One of my favorite devotions from that book talks about the overwhelming affection we have for our mate when we first meet. In fact we create this room in our head, the appreciation room. In this room we store all of the things we love about this person. We go there often to think of them and be in awe over the object of our affection. The appreciation room is generally built up in the first few months of our relationship. 

But over time we create another room out of a darker cooridor of our heart. The depreciation room. Here we write all of the bad things our spouse does, all of the hurt and pain is held onto here. Words for arguments are stored here and Divorce can even be plotted in this room.

I realized we have these rooms created for every relationship we have not just marriage. We usually dont start out feeling bitter toward our loved ones, our friends, parents or coworkers. But over time hurts can build up in this room and the door to the the appreciation room is opened less and less. 

I wonder do you think its possible we have rooms like this for God? Sometimes we can feel so inspired and in love with Him. We want to pray more, worship more, read more, serve more. Our eyes are intentionally fixed on Him.

Can you remember when you first fell in love with Jesus? The passion that lit your heart up?  You were on fire, sold out for Christ. Ready to tell the world about his mercy and grace. I remember that time where nothing mattered but Him. Where I wanted to shout my excitement for Jesus to the world. 

But then life happens, we go through hard season sometimes and seasons where God is quiet. 

Over time the world and our enemy help us create this other room for God. Our fear lives there, fear that He won't come through for us, fear that He has forsaken us, we may go to this room when we experience hurts in this life, maybe when we have unexplainable events like death. This room thrives on our lack of trust for God.

The enemy wants to keep us locked in this room but we have to challenge ourselves everyday to shut the door! And to only go to that door to write Chosen by his grace and covered with His love on it's panels. 

Jesus said to the church at Ephesus “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4 ESV

The good news is He will never abandon His love for us. 

The enemy wants to keep us in the depreciation room for all of our relationships. 

I would challenge all of us to think about what the rooms we've allowed ourselves to flee to when times get tough and the world is hard. And to ask ourselves this question, what would life look like if I allowed myself to feel how I felt when I first fell in love with Jesus!