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Renewing the First Love
Yenny Kartika Official Writer
1385Revelation
2:4
Nevertheless I have this
against you, that you have left your first love.
Bible
Reading for a Year
[bible]psalm85[/bible]; [bible]roman13[/bible]; [bible]deute17-18[/bible]
Through God's great desire to
be loved by his people, we have been given free will to choose to whom we would
invest our love. God, who created us out of pure love, clearly knows that not
all of us will choose to love Him.
We can see how the Lord suffers
while watching His children choose to love other people first; they love
perishable ideas and temporal goods. Yet He has shown his great love by
responding to our sins with the blessing and His mercy at all times.
The most expensive price of the
redemption of our sins is the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross.
There may be times when we feel sorry for ourselves for a moment of time, and
then back again idolizing many things in life; searching for satisfaction and
love of creation instead of the Creator. That's why we need to renew our first
love, a love that is placed only by God.
In Revelation 2:4, the church
of Ephesus was severely rebuked. “Nevertheless I have this against you,
that you have left your first love.” Yes, they kept their faith, but their love
of God has faded away. This is the most important part of the relationship of
God with His people: How we love God. Because the most important commands as
what Jesus has commanded us is, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind”
(Luke 10:27).
Loving God is our first
priority. Our love for God is the basis of all life's journey. 1 Corinthians
13: 1-3, briefly stated the importance of having love through speaking and acting.
Because God is love, and if love is fading from our hearts then life will mean
nothing. God lives in our hearts, and He wants to love as well as to be loved
by His children.
Too often we measure our
relationship with God based on how often we go to church, how many mission
trips we've done, how many people we’ve won, or how much donations we’ve given
to the house of the Lord.
But God is like the father in
the prodigal son story, who welcomed the returning of his youngest child and
celebrated it with a party. He is the shepherd who left the 99 sheep to find
the lost one. He waits patiently every day to show the deep of His love. Let's
re-encounter with God and allow His love to renew our first love ever
experienced with Him.
Experience
the love of God is the beginning and end of everything we do as His children.
