Your first love

Revelation 2:1-7

To the church in Ephesus though they diligently hated what God hated and loved what He loved God still had this one thing against them – they left their first love. It seems odd that you can diligently do the right things with patient endurance but your reason why is lost in the mechanics of the whole thing. Odd yes but impossible no, as a leader volunteer in charge of all media production for a church of four to five hundred and having teams of other volunteers and leaders there were times when the reason why I was doing the whole thing got pushed into a corner as I became consumed with the business of it all. God would quickly bring it to my attention and I remained humble and obedient and because of that He blessed my work and the people in the church. I managed that balancing act by training others to become leaders and by giving away what God had given me. For more than four years I did this faithfully until God said my work there was complete.

It’s not what you do but how you do it that matters. In all things be faithful to the One who calls you and love people enough to give away what seems to belong to you, after all it was your vision that you put your heart and soul into to bring it to the place that others have recognized. Did Jesus not do the same; did He not give everything for the sake of His Father’s call? In the end God has more than you could ever give away and that is why I believe the church at Ephesus was blinded by false limitations. They had become fixated on the work of the call and not the One who called them. If we believe this life is a journey that God uses so that we might experience relationship with Him and so that we become who He has called us to be then we simply cannot become attached to shiny things we find along the way. Yes, God will use you in mighty ways to teach others what relationship with Him looks like but don’t get stuck there. It would be like going to see the Grand Canyon and being mesmerized at the first sight of it and stopping there. It is only by continuing your adventure do you understand more about the Grand Canyon and see more wonderful sights than you did at first. Keep your first love new every morning by seeking Him whole-heartedly and the limits to how He uses you or more accurately the perceived limits you have placed on yourself, on your relationship with Him, and ultimately God Himself will keep getting pushed back and your faith will become strong in Him as you see God move mountains in your life.