First Love

First Love

Most of us can clearly remember that strange thing we call our “first love” – that time when, probably as teenagers, we fell head-over-heels in love with someone. Remember how you could think of nothing else, the emotions surging through your veins, vacillating from extreme exhilaration to despair, to joy, to doubt, to ecstasy, to fear? I bet very few of us actually married that person we were so infatuated with.

Whether you married that person or not does not matter all that much, but can you imagine living the rest of your life with those emotions, obsessions and infatuations? Of course not – no-one could ever endure that kind of emotional rollercoaster for very long and it certainly is not the kind of stuff that builds stable relationships. That initial infatuation needs to be replaced by a deeper love. A love of the heart, but also of the mind and the will – a love that chooses to love the other person, even though we have woken up to their weaknesses, flaws and failings. It is only this kind of love that has any kind of durability and on which we can really build any relationship.

Unfortunately too many people try desperately to recapture those heady days and partners resent one another because things are no longer the way they used to be. Many leave their partners and enter illicit relationships in a desperate attempt to regain those feelings. All this is based on the mistaken notion that the thing we call “first love” is better than “enduring love”. God’s “agape” (or Divine) love is nothing like teenage infatuation. He never fell madly in love with us. He chose to love us in spite of our sin, degradation and downright ugliness. He also continues to love us with an “everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) in spite of our unfaithfulness, and the lack of a reciprocity on our part.

So if God does not love us with a teenage soppy infatuation and that kind of emotionalism is not good enough to build a relationship on, why then should we as Christians regret the loss of our “first love” for the Lord? Before I answer that, can you remember how it was when you first got saved? Remember the fire, zeal and passion you felt for the Lord. Remember how you loved being in church, reading, praying and witnessing? So it has to be good – right? But do you also remember how many people still are suspicious of you and have been put off the gospel because of your lack of tact and wisdom? Do you remember how many rash promises you made Him that you had no ability to keep? Can you remember how one moment you were full of faith to take on the world and the very next you did not even know if you were saved?

Peter was a bit like that for about three years. He walked on the water and swore he would never deny the Master, yet a few hours later he denied that he even knew who Jesus was. Could Jesus build the church on that kind of instability? Off course not. That is why it was vital for Peter’s infatuation to be replaced by a deep-seated devotion and commitment to his Lord that would endure in the face of imprisonment, persecution and martyrdom. Why do we feel we need to return to our “first love”. For two reasons; because Barbara Cartland and Hollywood have brainwashed us into believing that is the best kind of love, and because of a mistaken reading of Revelation 2:4. (“…I have this against you, that you have left your first love.)

When Jesus brings this admonition against the Ephesian church, He did not have infatuation in mind when he was speaking about “first love”. The word “first” here is not used in the context of first, second and third as a sequence but rather as an order. What I mean is he was not saying that they need to return to the kind of love they first had, but rather, that we need to love the most important thing first. He was saying that what should have been number one in their lives, had been relegated to second place, third place, or worse!

There is no question who should be our number one or first love. Of course it is Jesus! This is the first and the Great Command and yet, we love ourselves, our possessions, or, as in the case of the Ephesians, the church more than we love Him! No wonder the rebuke is so strong! “Remember therefore from where you have fallen” (Revelation 2:5). No matter how pure our doctrine, how faithful our service and how long we have served Him, if it is not motivated and driven by a love for Him first and foremost, it is all empty and in vain.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-4).

Where is Jesus on your list? Is He number one? Is He everything? Or do we love the things He does for us, the things that surround Him, and the things that speak of Him? Remember God said He is a jealous God and that He will not share first place with anyone else? In Exodus 20:1 He says that He will not have other Gods beside or next to Him. When athletes compete in the Olympic Games, there is space for only one on the winner’s rostrum and in your heart, only One can occupy the prime position. And second place is just not good enough for the One whom the Father has exalted above all others!

If you recognize that He is not your first love, then there is only one thing to do. Revelation 3:5 says: “Repent”. Just like Jesus’ parents had to turn back and find where they had left him at the Temple, so we need to stop, turn around, and be restored to Him. He is waiting with open arms. Don’t delay: Be reconciled to Him today.

Anton Bosch

antonbosch@sbcglobal.net

3310 W Magnolia Blvd

Burbank, CA, 91505

Tel 818 846 5520