If God is love…
Then He responds to love, or the lack of it. Think about that for a moment.
1 John chapter 4 tells us that God is love. He is the standard of perfect love. We are to love each other as He loves us. Yet what gets lost in the discussion of God being love is that it has become a cliché. In many cases God’s loving nature has become a one-sided affair. God is love, He is loving, and He must be loving to me – in every situation, no matter what I think or do. And He does that. He loves each of us in every situation – through every situation – no matter what we think or do.
Yet since God is love, it isn’t one-sided. It would be convenient for us if it was always Him loving with nothing more to consider. Love doesn’t work that way. You know that loving can be a wonderful experience, but it can also bring heartache, hurt and longing. That’s the uncomfortable side of loving that we don’t want to experience or take responsibility for when we are the cause of it.
How Do You Feel When…
Take a moment to think of how you feel:
When you love someone and they don’t respond to your love – it hurts.
When you love them and care for their needs, only to be taken for granted – it hurts.
When you long to spend time with someone you love but they seldom make time for you – it hurts.
When a person you love disregards what you have to say – it hurts.
How we respond to someone else’s love has an impact.
It impacts God how we respond to His love.
God Chose To Love Knowing It Would Hurt
Somewhere in our minds we think that because He is God, it doesn’t affect Him. Yet the reality is that God understood love before we ever encountered it. He knew of its joys and its heartaches, and He was willing to interact with us at a loving level, fully aware that with the joys of relationship with us it would bring – it would also bring Him hurt as well. He deemed you and me worth it.
When people in a relationship begin to drift apart, love has been taken for granted, not responded to, disregarded or devalued. One or both decides to move on. You may have gone through a break up, a divorce, a family falling out. You understand how this happens and feels. It hurts.
God feels your hurt because He understands that feeling Himself. He deals with it from each of us at some level. Yet He never leaves. Through the hurt of rejection He continues to love you and me in the hope that we will be a part of the relationship He longs to have with us.
It’s that drifting apart that Jesus spoke of to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-3. He commended them for their work, their patience, and their attitude toward evil. He commended them for their diligence in keeping true to His teachings and weeding out those who taught something different
2 I know your works, your labor and your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles, but are not, and have found them to be liars. 3 You have endured, and have been patient, and for My name’s sake have labored and have not grown weary.
Remembering That First Love You Had For Him
The saints in Ephesus had been doing many things right, but as in many relationships, they had become busy in the relationship and had lost sight of what that relationship was founded on. Jesus pointed this out in vs 4 and 5:
4 “But I have something against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen.
They had abandoned, walked away from, taken for granted, lost sight of that first place of love that they had experienced and shared with God. They had originally become so excited in their relationship with Jesus – how He had rescued them from death, gave new meaning to their lives and had filled the void of their hearts. The love He showed them in His death on the cross and His resurrection to give them life they had reciprocated with excitement, appreciation, and passion. Yet over time that place and those feelings in the relationship on their side had diminished and had become diluted by the work they were doing. They had lost their focus on who was most important. Jesus was still loving them the same as always. They had stopped loving Him back as they once had.
They weren’t responding to His love as they once had, and it hurt.
They were taking Him for granted – and it hurt.
Although He made time for them, they seldom made true, intimate time for Him – and it hurt.
And Jesus had a problem with that, as He should have. You wouldn’t want to be treated that way, and neither would I.
Neither does Jesus.
Rekindling That Loving Feeling
When Jesus confronted the church of Ephesus in this area, He told them to “remember from where you have fallen”. They had to look back to where they had started with Him. Can you remember when you first accepted Jesus as your Savior? The peace that came into you, along with the excitement you had because of that peace. There was an energy that came to you as you realized that you were changed and that things were different. There was a swell of love in your heart like never before, and that love flowed strongly and freely toward Jesus, the one who had given Himself for you. The night I received Jesus I was so excited that I called my aunt at 11PM and woke her up to share my wonderful news. She was a bit groggy, but she was excited for me. I was ready to call more people but my dad suggested it would be better to wait until morning. He is a wise man.
I was excited because I had something I wanted to celebrate with those who understood, and to share with those who didn’t. I wanted to spend time learning more about Jesus and the things of God. I wanted to spend time in His presence. The Ephesian church had experienced much the same thing (minus the telephones) and Jesus was reminding them to go back to that place and fan the embers of that first love to ignite them again.
If you find you have lost that first place of love, excitement and appreciation for Jesus – go back to what He did for you that day you received Him. You were on your way into eternity headed to an unending date with Hell. Jesus changed all that. Open your mouth and thank Him for that.
Thank Him for what He has done in your life since then.
Thank Him for always being with you, even when things get rough.
Thank Him for never giving up on you, even when you know you deserved to be.
Thank Him for loving you, and for wanting His best for you.
Then repent for not loving Him as you once had.
Ask Him to forgive you for taking Him for granted.
Be determined to make time to spend with Him each day – true one on one time.
Then get back to loving Him like you had at the first. It’s all about perspective, and applying yourself to what you deem most important.
If you learn to do this and practice it in your other relationships, you will see your life change. Your capacity to love will grow, and your capacity to forgive will as well. That “first love” Jesus talked of is transformative. That is why it is so important. Get back to your first love, and help the world change one person at a time.
Thanks for listening, and have a great day!
