A Return to First Love

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. - Revelation 2:4

When I read about the church of Ephesus being the loveless church it reminded me of a time in my life that was rather similar.

For several years I was stuck in this rut, this place of angst towards the church. I saw what I determined were hustlers masquerading as preachers, false prophets, and mean and angry people who claimed to follow the most loving Man who has ever lived. I couldn’t reconcile it. How can these people follow the same God of the bible that I believe in?

The more that I criticized them and judged them for their faults, the harder it was for me to relate to God. See, when I thought about religion or my spiritual walk the first thing I thought about were these “terrible Christians”.

I had lost sight of my first love, just like the church at Ephesus.

I was stuck in this place for at least five years, maybe more. Everything in my life was at a standstill, my job, my love life, my dreams. It’s like my spiritual walk stopped at a fork in the road and everything else stopped with it.

Finally, when I had no idea what to do next, I just stopped everything and asked God what to do. He told me that no one else had anything to do with my relationship with Him.

He called me back to first love.

Ever since then, since returning to the focus of loving Him first and above all things, nothing has been the same. When I returned my focus to Him I could finally see clearly again. Through taking my eyes off of others and locking them on Him I could see the truth.

Focusing on God made sense of who I was, where I was going, and everything around me. He became the prism through which I look at the world. And through this prism, the heavenly kaleidoscope of His Word, He showed me his rainbow of promises. My black and white vision of the past was turned into vibrant and radiant color. There was no more “either or”, “this or that”. There was only the I Am; who is, was and is to come.

The letter to the church in Ephesus has taught me that I can overcome any feelings of hopelessness or lack of purpose by returning to the first love. In loving God and my neighbors as myself my purpose will always be revealed.

And yours will be too.