If I were to ask you if you love the LORD, I am sure I will get a resounding yes. And If I asked how you measure this love you profess, I’m sure you would rattle off all the wonderful things you do for him, like how much you read your bible and pray and serve in ministry, right? Well, what if I told you these things do not necessarily prove that we love HIM. In fact, they don’t…if He isn’t the goal.
You may say “of course He is the goal, everything I am doing is for Him”. But consider, are you doing them for Him because you are after some reward (even the eternal one) or are you doing it to draw nearer to Him? What if you did all those things and he never blessed you, never used you as you desire to be used? What if your lot was to stay hidden with Him until He returned, would you still be so zealous to do all these things?
The danger is that we have forgotten that His presence is the present. When we first got saved, we knew how wretched our souls were and how much we did not deserve the grace of God. This is why it was easy for us to only want Jesus, His love amazed us. He was the foundation of our Christian life because we knew our nothingness.
But sadly, as we grew in the Lord, we forgot about the Cross and our first love and began pursuing the things of God. And many of us would insist that we don’t serve God for things. Well truthfully, that may be in your limited concept of things being only material things. But we all are guilty of pursuing God for things, whether is it emotional things like wholeness, affirmation, love, peace, or spiritual things like, fulfilling our destiny and our assignment, doing well in ministry and hearing “well done”…We ALL do it.
The trick is, these are considered “good” things, so we don’t see how much they contaminate the purity of our pursuit.
Think on this: Do you just lay in the presence of God and think “wow” how blessed I am to just be in His presence?” Not asking for anything, not pursuing for anything not listening for anything, just happy to be near. I don’t mean once in a while. Is this the type of relationship you cultivate where you adore Jesus Your first love. Where you continue to be breathless for His love, awe struck by the wonder of His beautiful face?
God is calling us back to the place of our first love, where everything we did was focused on loving Him and being near to Him because we were so fascinated by His grace!
Let us examine ourselves and repent for where we have fallen short as we read Jesus’ admonition below:
Rev 2:2-5 TLB
2 I know how many good things you are doing. I have watched your hard work and your patience; I know you don’t tolerate sin among your members, and you have carefully examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but aren’t. You have found out how they lie. 3 You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
4 “Yet there is one thing wrong; you don’t love me as at first! 5 Think about those times of your first love (how different now!) and turn back to me again and work as you did before; or else I will come and remove your candlestick from its place among the churches.
Prayer: Lord purify my motives for pursuing you. Remove the blinders so that I can see what is really in my heart and help me to love you for YOU! Bring me back to my first love so that my heart could adore you again. In Jesus name. Amen
How Pure is Your Pursuit
If I were to ask you if you love the LORD, I am sure I will get a resounding yes. And If I asked how you measure this love you profess, I’m sure you would rattle off all the wonderful things you do for him, like how much you read your bible and pray and serve in ministry, right? Well, what if I told you these things do not necessarily prove that we love HIM. In fact, they don’t…if He isn’t the goal.
You may say “of course He is the goal, everything I am doing is for Him”. But consider, are you doing them for Him because you are after some reward (even the eternal one) or are you doing it to draw nearer to Him? What if you did all those things and he never blessed you, never used you as you desire to be used? What if your lot was to stay hidden with Him until He returned, would you still be so zealous to do all these things?
The danger is that we have forgotten that His presence is the present. When we first got saved, we knew how wretched our souls were and how much we did not deserve the grace of God. This is why it was easy for us to only want Jesus, His love amazed us. He was the foundation of our Christian life because we knew our nothingness.
But sadly, as we grew in the Lord, we forgot about the Cross and our first love and began pursuing the things of God. And many of us would insist that we don’t serve God for things. Well truthfully, that may be in your limited concept of things being only material things. But we all are guilty of pursuing God for things, whether is it emotional things like wholeness, affirmation, love, peace, or spiritual things like, fulfilling our destiny and our assignment, doing well in ministry and hearing “well done”…We ALL do it.
The trick is, these are considered “good” things, so we don’t see how much they contaminate the purity of our pursuit.
Think on this: Do you just lay in the presence of God and think “wow” how blessed I am to just be in His presence?” Not asking for anything, not pursuing for anything not listening for anything, just happy to be near. I don’t mean once in a while. Is this the type of relationship you cultivate where you adore Jesus Your first love. Where you continue to be breathless for His love, awe struck by the wonder of His beautiful face?
God is calling us back to the place of our first love, where everything we did was focused on loving Him and being near to Him because we were so fascinated by His grace!
Let us examine ourselves and repent for where we have fallen short as we read Jesus’ admonition below:
Rev 2:2-5 TLB
2 I know how many good things you are doing. I have watched your hard work and your patience; I know you don’t tolerate sin among your members, and you have carefully examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but aren’t. You have found out how they lie. 3 You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
4 “Yet there is one thing wrong; you don’t love me as at first! 5 Think about those times of your first love (how different now!) and turn back to me again and work as you did before; or else I will come and remove your candlestick from its place among the churches.
Prayer: Lord purify my motives for pursuing you. Remove the blinders so that I can see what is really in my heart and help me to love you for YOU! Bring me back to my first love so that my heart could adore you again. In Jesus name. Amen