Seeking Jesus – Remembering Your First Love – Morning Devotional

Seeking Jesus From the Edges-
Morning Devotions – Remembering Your First Love
Prayerfully prepared by Pastor Calvin Cook – August 15, 2024

Scripture focus – Revelations 2:2-5 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.3You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.5Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

As I shared this week in my message about the desire of my heart to be a follower of Jesus, I was convicted of a few words “not just by words but by action”. I have been trying to realize some action steps that I need to take in my own life and hopefully it pours out into everything. In this the conviction comes of what will make me a better person, a better husband, a better friend, a better Pastor, a better business owner, better at everything that has become an essential of who I am. This morning it culminated with a question by the Holy Spirit. “Have you lost your first Love”. Immediately my answer was “NO!”, yes it was an out loud “NO !”. However, in just the way that we are constantly pursued by the Holy Spirit to do the right thing – the questioning continued: “why do you do what you do?” “Who are you doing it for?” “Are we being busy for the right reasons?”, “Has everything got in my way that I have a hard time seeing the better way that has been made for me?” My immediate response was that is a lot to ask at one time. But then the realization we don’t just build a wall and bam it is there, it is built one brick at a time, until it becomes so over whelming that we quit trying to get around it, through it, past it.

In the letters to the churches the Apostle Paul wrote letters that almost always centered around reminding them of their first love, why they were who they were in Christ, how they needed constantly to be reminded of the grace of God that was at work within them. That common thread is repeated in the letters to the churches found in the opening chapters of Revelation. The words of prophecy that was written to the Church of Ephesus really speaks to our present condition not only as a church but as individuals, communities, families, to everything that we are engaging in and with. This is about our first love – complete, unadulterated, un-filtered love of God, knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior of our life, and living into a life of discipleship and following Jesus.

Yet, everything gets in the way of being and doing what will create that love of God that will overwhelm us in our life, instead we are overwhelmed by the things, situations, desires, and hopes that is found in this relationship with God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I have had some recent events and activities that has brought me back to the place where I realized the lack in my own life of remembering that first love of God. I worshipped in the first church I had ever preached in at the age of 15. I don’t think anything physically in that church building has changed in the last 45 years, but the one reminder is that love of God is still so very evident and there was for me quite a feeling of the Holy Spirit. I want to say this clearly for you if you are not feeling the Holy Spirit in your times of worship, self-devotion, or service then you are allowing all of this stuff of the world to get in your way. The second part this week happened in the Kane Cook’s Home Furniture Store. I don’t very often speak with customers any longer or try to sell, but I felt really good about helping a lady find exactly what she wanted. It took me back to the early days of the furniture business when I would sell people used furniture out of a shed next to the mobile home that Gail and I lived in as our first home. It wasn’t about advertising, paying bills, taxes, deductions, or anything else it was about helping people to get furniture, it gave great satisfaction. Lately in business, in very difficult times and through many different situations it has become such a struggle, but I realized once again that first love I had because of being able to help this customer.

I realize we all are in a different place. The whole part about it, is we haven’t made it about Jesus. Read those verses again Revelation 2 “I know your deeds, your hard work and perseverance” “You have persevered and endured hardships, grown weary”. In my words “yet we have allowed all these things to keep us from our first love.” The shame is on us, the redemption is needed by us, the way has been made and all we need to do is follow the way that has been prepared for each of us. It will mean getting back to that first love which is Jesus. Name it and claim it !