Slow Fade

"Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." Revelations 2:4

We've all seen, heard of or maybe even experienced times when a relationship (business, personal, marital, etc.) that started out on a firm foundation deteriorated over time. It may have seemed strong, fruitful and mutually beneficial for years, but gradually it lost its luster. The love that once fueled a hobby, a career, a ministry, a friend, a spouse, or a dream for the future can fade like a dying ember. Something to which we were once vitally committed no longer has a priority in our life. While the loss of love is a disheartening experience in any area of life, there is one area in which the consequences are most serious: when we lose our spiritual love for the things of God. Without diligence, the fire of love that burned brightly when we first met Jesus Christ can begin to fade and provide lesser and lesser amounts of light in this world.

In Revelations, we find the record of a church that had started strong but then lost its first love: the church at Ephesus (Rev. 2:1-7). Actually, they didn't lose their first love, they left their first love. Wasn't this the same church that Paul commends as having "heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints" (Eph. 1:15-16)? Wasn't this the church with whose elders Paul knelt and prayed and wept as he left them after three years in their midst (Acts 20:17-28)? Yet, by the end of the first century, the Lord they once loved and served was rebuking them for having left their first love. Jesus commended their works, their labour, and their patience in the past. But yesterday's legacy and faithfulness is no guarantee of today's love and faith. Love for Christ is like a flame that must be fed daily. And the Ephesians, somewhere over the years, let the flame of their love go out.

The way we leave our love - love for Christ, the Scriptures, prayer, our spouse, our family, our ministry - is the same in every case. It boils down to five root causes: we leave by lusting, by lack of attention, by lack of perseverance, by laziness, by lapsing. If we do not guard against the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life (1 John 2:16), we can leave the things of Christ in pursuit of the things of this world. If we ignore the Bible, our spouse, our attendance at church or our prayer time, it will only be a matter of time before we find little or no love for those parts of our life. Love takes work, diligence and perseverance. It's easy to sleep in instead of rising to pray and read the Bible, and easier to take a spouse for granted than to practice acts of kindness and love. Sometimes it's just plain laziness. We can easily go through life as a couch potato, surfing the cable/satellite channels or the Internet and live an unfocused, self-centered
life. And finally, we can leave our love by lapsing into sin - and staying there.

Jesus told the church at Ephesus that unless they repented, He would remove the light of His presence from their midst (Rev. 2:5). The way to rekindle and keep our love for Jesus and others is by reversing what we did to lose it. In short, fuel the proper desires, stay focused on the relationship, do your best to maintain and grow the relationship, don't get distracted by mind-numbing activities/experiences and avoid all appearances and temptations of evil and sin.

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Copyright © 2021, Mark Varga, All rights reserved.