In case you missed the message:

“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” Revelation 2:4-5 (NIV)

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” Matthew 22:37 (NIV)

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Day 1: Returning to Your First Love

In the message, we are presented with a sobering audit of the heart. The church at Ephesus was busy, diligent, and doctrinally sound, yet they were charged with leaving their “first love”. As noted, this doesn’t mean they stopped loving Jesus entirely; it means they didn’t love Him with the same intensity they once did.

A profound metric is offered for self-examination: if there was ever a time in your past when you loved the Lord Jesus more than you do at this very moment, you are in a “backslidden” state. This loss of intimacy is cited as a primary reason for the “oppression and depression” currently felt within the Body of Christ.

To illustrate the nature of “first love,” it can be compared to the excitement of a new teacher who woke up at 4:30 AM simply because he could not wait to get to school and be with his students. That same “hardly wait” energy is the standard for our daily walk with Jesus. The longer we serve Him, the sweeter the relationship should grow, rather than fading into a routine of religious complacency.

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“The first love is the love of our espousals—that love which we had when we were first called by the Lord… when the heart was very warm, and the soul was very near to Christ.” ~ Charles Spurgeon

“God is not a ‘thing’ to be studied; He is a Person to be loved.” ~ A.W. Tozer

Take a moment to look at the “ledger” of your spiritual life. Is your current devotion based on momentum from years ago, or is it a fresh, daily fire?

• Ask yourself: Do I still “wake up early” in my spirit to spend time with Him, or has our relationship become a series of checked boxes?
• Action Step: Identify one spiritual “discipline” that has become a mere routine and ask the Holy Spirit to breathe new life and “sweetness” into that time today.

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Heavenly Father,

We thank You for the “sobering audit” You’ve performed on our hearts today. We confess that while we may be busy, diligent, and “doctrinally sound,” we have sometimes allowed the heat of our first love to cool into a routine of checked boxes and religious complacency.

Lord, we take to heart the hard truth that if we have ever loved You more in the past than we do at this very moment, we are in a backslidden state. We ask for Your forgiveness and for a fresh outpouring of Your Spirit to break the “oppression and depression” that so often stems from a loss of true intimacy with You.

Grant us that “hardly wait” energy—the kind that makes us eager to wake up early just to spend time in Your presence. We don’t want to just “talk the talk,” but to truly “walk the walk” in a relationship that grows sweeter every single day.

In the name of Jesus Christ, our First Love, Amen.