Abandoning our First Love

April 27, 2013

             One of the indictments brought against the church by Jesus Christ in judgment was that the people of God had abandoned their first love. It is a reality that the church must face today!

            When addressing the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:1-7, Jesus celebrates the conviction and dedication of the church. He commends them for remaining true to the teachings of faith, standing strong against evil, and for patiently enduring the tests of their faith.  “But I have this against you,” Jesus says in verse 4. “You have abandoned the love you had at first.” Jesus calls the church to return to its first love or face destruction in the face of their presumed righteousness.

            The contrast is stark and speaks volumes! The church was far from dead. It was active, vital, energetic, and very likely making a large difference in the world. In many ways, the Ephesian church probably appeared to be one of the most dynamic and successful churches in its day. Yet, for all their passionate energy and enthusiastic witness for Christ, they lacked something critical.

            The 13th Chapter of First Corinthians often used for its poetic beauty on the virtues of love, also vividly cautions against the fallacy of acting with full passion and conviction without the foundation of God’s love.

            John writes in his first letter that God is love and that anyone presuming to act in God’s name, must do so by living out of Christ’s love (1 John 4:7-21). It is an echo of Christ’s own words in John 15. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. In order to bear fruit, we must live in him.

            The challenge for the church is to understand the critical difference between doing the work of the church and actually being the church! Much like the ancient church of Ephesus, we may not always have our first love in mind when we act in the name of Christ.  This reality plays out in stark terms as the church engages the social, political, legal, and economic realities of our modern world.

Many Christians call for tremendous resistance against what is deemed as dangerous progression into godless oblivion. Social structures, definitions of morality, and the role of faith in public life are changing rapidly. Christians are understandably outraged at the rapidly-changing culture and are expressing this righteous anger in a passionate drive to hold fast to what is good, right, and sacred.

Many Christians call for tremendous resistance against the traditional expressions of faith and morality. They faithfully and enthusiastically embrace the progressive change of modern life and look to transform an ancient religious structure into a modern, relevant, and inclusive expression of God’s love for all.

Although the two extreme examples of Christian expression represent vastly different understandings of authentic Biblical witness, they also represent something potentially more volatile! They could be the symptoms of a very serious sin—abandoning our first love. 

God calls us to make a difference in our world. Sometimes this genuinely requires that we take on the powers and principalities that affect our culture. The danger comes when we allow our enthusiastic passion for all that we believe God wants changed in the world to become more important than the Christ within us. We start living out of resistance and not in Christ. In spite of our genuine zeal, we abandon our first love. In all things, let us act and live in Christ!

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Our rage will not produce God’s righteousness. Such only comes through the prayerful pursuit of peace, compassion, understanding, and God’s love—the perfect love that casts out all fear. 

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