Has Your Passion Died?

(Revelation 2:1-5) “To the messenger of the church in Ephesus, write: ‘The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lamp stands, says this: ‘I know what you’ve been doing, your toil, and your endurance. I also know that you cannot tolerate evil people. You have tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not, and have found them to be false.

You have endured and suffered because of my name, yet you have not grown weary. However, I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.

Therefore, remember how far you have fallen. Repent and go back to what you were doing at first. If you don’t, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place—unless you repent.’”

Everyone remembers their first days of being in love. The tremendous passion you felt for your partner. How lucky you felt that you had him/her in your life. How you would spend hours on the phone just listening to his/her voice and how proud you were to be constantly seen with him/her. We have all either lived or desired this so-called “Hollywood” passionate love.

But most of us have now gone cold to these initial feelings and no longer have the same passion. This might not be a wrong thing, as long as the love for each other is firm and continues to grow, but one tends to stop doing the things one did when they first fell in love.

The same happens to most of us in our walk with Christ. Remember when you first felt the freedom from sin and completely surrounded by His love? How you would spend literally hours on end reading your Bible or watching and listening to Christian Sermons? How you waited anxiously for the next time your church had a meeting, no matter how many times a week it was?

Have you forgotten those nights Christ would wake you up and speak to your heart, and before you knew it, it was time to go to work? When was the last time you literally broke down in tears during worship, not caring who was around?
In the book of Revelations, we see that Christ knows about this passionate, puppy love, or “first love” as He refers to it. And He is aware that some of us have lost it, and asks us to repent and return to it. He asks us to return to the same things we did before we took His sacrifice on the cross and His love for granted.

If you read in this passage, the church He is talking to was not in sin. They actually were doing all the right things, and were hating the sin others committed, but had fallen from that state of passion in their relationship with Christ.

In other words, their spiritual life had gone from a passionate relationship to a dead religion. Don’t let this happen to you, and if it has, don’t worry. Just start to do the things you did when you first received Christ as your personal God and Savior, and watch that passion return.

If you have never experienced this passion for God, you have no idea what you are missing and how much Christ loves you.

Prayers

• Eternal God, Your name is exalted, Your name is pleasant, Your name is ointment poured out.
• We truly repent of becoming cold in our walk with Christ.
• Help us today to regain that initial passion we had for You, Jesus. We want to return to our “first love”.
• Give us the passion we had in the beginning for the lost souls around us, for the hearing and preaching of the Word, for the fellowship time with the brothers and sisters in Christ, for the time we spent in worship, and for the brokenness we felt as we desired more of You.
• Give us the wisdom to let go of some of the things we are doing, even if they are for the Church, and focus on the time needed to rediscover You, Jesus.
• Help us Holy Spirit, our spirit cries out to You.
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• We ask in Jesus’ Mighty name. Amen