Light the fire again

Yet I hold this against you; you have forsaken your first love. Revelation 2: 4

The Apostle John was writing to the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2: 1 - 1. He commended them for all their hard work and perseverance. They had not tolerated wicked men and had tested those who came to them claiming to be apostles and yet were not. They had persevered through great hardships and not grown weary. They had much to commend them but they had lost their first love, their passion.

When we are first in love, all we can think about is the wonderful object of our affection. It consumes us and we prioritise our first love over everything else. We are so excited about this person and all we want to do is talk about them to anyone who will listen. We hug to ourselves every little word and action that has happened between us. We can’t wait to meet them again.

When we first became Christians we were like that. We were walking on air thinking about Jesus and what had happened. We may have felt a great sense of gratitude to him; we may have felt so light as our burden of sin had rolled away. We wanted to talk about Jesus to anyone who would listen and we couldn’t wait to slip away and spend time with him or go to church to draw near to him.

The church at Ephesus had done really well. They were not full of dead works like the church at Sardis. They had worked hard, resisted wicked men, persevered, not grown weary BUT they had lost that wonderful love for God. They were doing all the right things but for the wrong reasons. They were not doing them out of love for the one who had saved them. 
For many who have been Christians for years, we too can fall into this routine; just as those who have been married many years can fall into a comfortable routine forgetting the passion that united them originally. We do all the right things, everything that needs to be done but the spark, the fire has died right down.

Today let us ask God to renew our passion for him and re light the fire we felt at first especially if we have become distracted by works over our relationship with Jesus. Our love now may be laced with a bit more wisdom and discernment than it was at the beginning but it should be just as passionate.

Lord Jesus I am so sorry that my love has cooled down. Please will you blow on the embers of my love today and cause the passionate fire I used to feel for you to burn again. Help me to do what I do out of love for you and not out of routine, duty or misplaced commitment. Light the fire again I pray. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.