First Love

.. you have persevered and have patience, and have laboured for My name’s sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. Rev 2:3-5 NKJV

These few verses are usually used to highlight the state of the ‘backslider’, and the threat of judgement if they don’t repent. God does not want any to perish, but to come to repentance, and I don’t think it matters to God how you come, as long as you return. The action of returning and repenting is the most important.

But wait. There are other loves, and we have all experienced at least some, if not all of them. The obvious one is our first human love. The memory of that first boyfriend or girlfriend stays with us, even when we have moved on and found our special person. In fact, I would go as far as to say, we probably needed to move on. What about your first car? The love of a young man (usually, but not always) with his first car never leaves, but chances are he still drives, but not the same car. He had to move on. After all, the car wouldn’t last forever. Then there was your first small house or flat, where many memories were made, but we have moved on because it got too small, so we loved it and left it for something better, but we still live in a house! What about our first job, or the first kiss, or the first Sunday School teacher who spurred you on and gave you something to strive for? You could add your own ‘first love’ to the list.

The first love we had when we came to know Christ as a Saviour, can also change and fade with time. That can be normal and usual, as long as the flame does not go out altogether. If your spiritual first love is fading or waning, then the warning in the verse is clear. Repent and return to your first works. In all the other cases above, showing some of our first loves, and how we reacted when that first love faded, we had to move on for our own benefit and good. It is important in the normal phases of life, and so I leave you with this thought: What if your first love cannot be rekindled in the church of your youth, where you found Christ as Saviour? What then? Stay and flicker, or renew elsewhere? Big question, but with no easy answer.