First Love

Do you remember your first crush, starting dating or newly married?  You may have shared a booth or dinners when out for dinner, you made homemade cards for one another, you sent candy AND flowers.  But then for most couples that time slowly comes to an end.  The home-made cards became store-bought; sharing food was not that appealing, candy and flowers are two separate gifts, if they are given at all.  Something changed once the relationship moved from new, to something normal, common, and expected.  Some of the early passion in the relationship may have gone away, or just transformed into something different.  As the passion fades, we tend to take the relationship for granted, we stop doing things to remind those we love how special they are, and sometimes forget all together the importance of that relationship is to us.  Our relationships become another task or job on our list of things to do.  We don’t do it intentionally.  Life is busy; there are bills to pay, appointments, jobs, kids, pets, other family, and all sorts of other things that pull at our time.

If we are not careful our faith and relationship with God can easily get caught up in the everyday routine.   Think about when we first become a believer and how excited we were about our faith or came home from a retreat or mission trip on a “God high”.  I know of some, who read the Bible cover to cover in days, spent hours in prayer, began to volunteer at a food pantry, only for it to continue a little while.  Then the normalcy sets in.  Their bibles start to collect dust on the shelf, our prayer time becomes three minutes before we fall asleep, and we get a little too busy to volunteer.  We find ourselves at church, but not engaged.  We pray but we don’t believe it does anything, and quickly we have forgotten our love of God, the reason we began any of this.

We are not the first people to experience this, in Revelation there is a letter to a church in Ephesus that says this from God, “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, TNIV)  For the church in Ephesus, they had become so focused on “doing church” (meetings, by-laws, administration, the color of the walls) that they had forgotten that all of it should find its source and focus in our love and relationship with God.  So what is the instruction to the church?  Do what you did at first.  At first you did not have committees that fought about the budget, you simply used all that you had to care for the community.  At first you did not fight about styles and formats of worship or bulletins, you simply rejoiced at the opportunity to come together and worship God in one voice.  At first, church was a place that we came to worship God, encourage one another in our faith, and share the Good News with other.

In the midst of meetings, committees, programs, budgets, paperwork, styles, and preferences have we lost our focus?  Is our first love of God still the drive and source of all our life together as Christians?  Or is our faith becoming just one more job, one more distraction, and one more thing to do in an already busy schedule.  Let us remember our first love – God.

Dream

When I was in 6^th grade I did a project about what I was going to be when I grew up.  I had to research all about what kind of training was needed, the perks and struggles of the job, and more.  In 6^th grade I decided that I was going to be an astronaut, to explore the universe, to study how things worked.  I had big dreams about what I was going to do one day.

There is a creative gene in each of us that dreams.  We have big dreams about careers, family, and even our faith and church.  But then something often happens to those dreams, someone steps on them.  It sounds like this, “that is a great idea, but how will you pay for it, that will never work, oh just wait till you grow up a little you will change, wait till you do this for a while.”  How many of you have heard this?  These little comments from loved ones and others can crush those dreams, our passion for a cause or idea, or job suddenly is squelched.  So often what we do then is settle.  Well since, this idea, job, and passion, is silly or not possible, let’s just do something else, what is easier, less scary, pays better, or involves less risk that I can pursue instead.  Next thing you know we are simply surviving, we do just enough to keep our relationships alive, just enough to keep going, but not much more than that.

This happens to a church from Ephesus in scripture, and they get a letter from God about it.  It begins this way, “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance (Revelation 2:2, TNIV), so far so good, they are affirmed for working hard, and for sticking to their guns, but then the passage continues, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:4, TNIV)  God calls them out for just getting by, but also for being distracted.  They had forgotten their passion for God, all the reasons they became a church, all the reasons they wanted to be a Christian, and were just going through the motions.

During high school I had a number of friends who were not Christians that I eventually invited to youth group.  Today a number of those guys are Christians.  I had the joy to pray and talk with one of them as he became a Christian, and thought to myself, this is the greatest gift I could ever give someone, introducing them to God.  That was my dream that sent me into ministry, sharing in relationships that lead to transformation, and helping introduce people to God.

What dreams has God placed on your heart?  Maybe your dream is to become a praying family, or to train young leaders, to become well versed in the bible, to invite all your neighbors to church, or more.  Has something or someone taken you off that path?  Were you told that it was unrealistic, too big, and too crazy?  God reminds us that those dreams, those passions, those first loves need to drive us, to be remembered, and not forgotten.

What is Your Heart?

What is it that gets you excited each morning as you wake up?  What is it that keeps you going when you are down, what is it that focuses your work, your finances, and your time?  For the apostle Paul it was helping people to know God.  Paul had been given a second chance at life by God, and wanted to extend that same opportunity to others.  He says this in 1 Corinthians 9, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them.” (1 Corinthians 9:19, ESV)  Paul goes onto say that he has become like Jews, gentiles, lawless and lawful people all so that he could share the gospel with them, so that he might save some.  Paul’s heart is for the gospel, and in all that he does he is seeking to share the gospel and introduce others to God.

So we have to ask ourselves, what is our drive as Christians?  What is it that gets us excited about church, about our faith?  Is our drive to find a nice church that tells us what we want to hear, or instead to challenge us and help us to grow?  Is our drive to read all of scripture, or just focus on the sections that we like the most?  Is our drive for more people to know Jesus because of us, or does that idea makes you a little uncomfortable?

Paul writes this passage knowing that he once was outside of Jesus’ church, and in fact spent his time persecuting Christians all across the Romans empire.  But God gave Paul a second chance, He saved him, and gave him a new purpose in life: carrying the message to non-churched people who have not heard it.  Paul knew how Jesus could transform a life, it forever changed the direction of Paul’s life.  For him he knew he had to give back, to show his thankfulness for what God has done for him by taking the same message to others, and helping others to know God.

So where is your heart?  As you think about what gets your excited about your faith, about church, about life, what is it that drives your heart?  Each of us have been transformed by what God has done for us and through us, shouldn’t our hearts be to help others know that same God who changed our own lives?  Read these lyrics from the song “I’m for You” by Christian artist Toby Mac, and think about where your heart is, “Whatever I gotta be  I’ll be for you, Whatever you need from me To see it through”  Do our hearts say this to God?  Does our heart for God and his work push us like Paul to, “become all things to all people so that I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9: 22).