When God is your first love then spending time with Him is not a duty nor is it an item on a checklist to get done so that you can then spend your time on the more exciting things whatever they might be for you - hanging out with friends, doing stuff with your spouse or kids, cooking, shopping, playing a game, solving a jigsaw puzzle, reading, sleeping. All of these in themselves are not bad and even essential for our overall wellbeing as humans; but are they the highlight of your time or is God the highlight of your time? Is your 1:1 time with God getting sidelined by work, family, chores, or even idleness, hobbies, recreational activities? The enemy of our soul is an expert deceiver.
It is mind boggling how subtly and for how long the enemy can keep us from our utmost for His highest and I was slowly acknowledging that that is the case with me, slowly waking up to the realization that it’s probably been this way for years or decades.
I knew I needed God, and there were moments in a day or a week that are filled with bursts of expression of that love for Him but it was not the first, not primary, more like a side gig. I realized I have developed a frost over my first love for my Creator and my God and that this frost has the capacity to harden - such as more apathy, more of “just existing” instead of living, more of going from distraction to distraction to please the brain and little or no real soul food. It was not as if I was not grateful, I was. I found myself thanking God multiple times. I found myself thinking how great He must be as I see the beauty of the mists rising on the lake or mountain tops, the fall colors changing or the new wildflowers encountered on each walk. I found myself running to Him to ask for things, that - I have not forgotten to do: heal me, save me from this difficult situation, protect my family, specific prayers for family members or friends and on and on. But that’s just using God’s one aspect in my relation with Him - meeting needs. What about just wanting Him for who He is and not for all the benefits? "Praise be to the Lord, the God of heaven and earth and forget not all His benefits. He forgives all our sins, heals all our diseases and restores our lives from the grave. He does not punish us as we deserve, He remembers that we dust" (Psalm 103:1-4,10) seemed to be a favorite verse that I found myself reciting each morning. A great verse and yet could it just become a utilitarian view of God?
I loved the “God service” and its functions and I certainly knew that He is the Almighty and I sort of liked Him too. But was I in love with Him?
Remember what it was like to fall in love with your boyfriend or girlfriend, or with your new born child if you are a parent and what it was like to fall in love with Jesus when you first met Him and experienced His love? There was nothing of that nature for way too long. Were busy-ness with work and good activities when I was not working becoming the excuses to not spend my prime time with my Creator God?
I could be “using my gifts” and they work because, well, they are good and perfect gifts given by my heavenly Father but that doesn’t mean He is my first love. I can serve those in need and serve family but that doesn’t mean He is my first love. I can be doing all the “Martha” things yet losing the only “Mary” things that matter. Why is God being my first love important?
Its not just important. It is everything. It is the only thing, really.
- Because that’s His first command “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)
- Because He is coming for His Bride not for His half-girlfriend. (Ephesians 5:25-27, Revelation 19:7-9, 21:1-2)
- Because He is serious about having a love relationship not a master-slave, teacher-follower relationship. "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her .." (Ephesians 5:25)
- Because who He is, what He has done, doing great deeds in His name can all be done without Him knowing you ..Many will say in that day, Lord Lord we did this and that in your name .."Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me ..'" (Matthew 7:22-23)
- Because He deems losing the first love for God, the one reason to lose the betrothal. "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen." (Revelation 2:4-5)
- Because the five laissez-faire maidens were too late to seek oil in their lamp. In the typical upside down ways of His Kingdom, there is no spiritual fuel without first love fire for Him. (Matthew 25:1-13)
How radically reprioritized I would be if He were my first love.
So where do I go from here?
God does not condemn, He does not accuse that’s the first thing to remember. Then, Turn around, He says, make a U-turn and come back, openly acknowledge the frost over your love for Him. Remember what it was like, He says, when you first loved Him.
Do those things which you did at first, He says. (Revelation 3)
The enemy of our soul already has the world under his sway. He never stops attempting to lull a believer into complacency, sleep, temptation, being deceived with doing “godly” things. This is an active battlefield and there is a constant battle for souls including keeping a believer trapped or wandering with realizing it. If you have been enchanted by the forest and cocooned, like in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in the fictitious giant spider Shelob’s lair; and you realize it then don’t waste time trying to work up a guilt or the right repentant sentiment. That "feeling" will be hard to come by as it often happens in the process of getting slowly spun into the cocoon of deception. Don't let that stop you.
Just run straight to Him and tell Him like it is - I have forsaken You as my first love, I have loved this thing(s) before You and this is me choosing my way over Yours. I want to come back.
God knows your heart and your mind even if you are not “feeling” it. The frost over your first love for God does that - it makes you unable to feel and I find that I have to even repent of my repentance over and over again. Remember that God is faithful even when I am not, He says so.
I am able to step out of the cocoon and walk out of the enchanted forest, because it helps to remember that He has loved me first.
When I Turned Back to Him, after a few very difficult days, He came with songs in the night, with deep memories of those first times with Him and helped me Remember. He is unfolding the answer and He is breaking the frost over my heart. He comes at early pre-dawn hours, He is enabling my heart to feel again, He is enabling me to live again those times of my first years with Him. Slowly there is a crack in the frost. It is difficult because I have allowed myself to plug in to the world for my prime recharging and now the flesh is resisting. There are many attacks on my mind from the enemy to deter me, confuse me, make me feel like it is hopeless.
I am pressing on even when I don’t feel like it nor think I will be able because I am encouraged that God has not forsaken me.
Lord, take over the position of Captain over my life, my heart, my mind. I am a very bad Captain of me. Change my heart, change my desires and enable to Remember and to Do those things I did at first. I need You, Lord, to need You. I need you, Lord, to love you.
