“…But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
(NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE)
I think sometimes we too can forget our first love – Jesus. We think back to how ‘on-fire’ we were in the beginning, but years down the track, our love for the things of God seems to be secondary. Sometimes we allow the stress and pressures of life control us and cause us to make unhealthy decisions. We get caught up in our problems and build a wall between God and ourselves. We may not be aware we are even doing it. We become unhappy in our lives whether it’s in relationships, in our workplaces or even in service to the Lord. We look to other things or people to make us happy. We forget Jesus.
I believe God is calling us back to our first love. He wants us to find our happiness in Him. Nothing else this world can offer can fill the void inside – only Jesus can fill us with what we really long for, after all, God has created us to need fellowship with Him.
Filling our lives with material things to make us happy, or going for another job, or being with people we think will make us happy, is not the answer. It might be for a short time – but then we become unhappy again. We become discontented because these things won’t bring us lasting happiness. People let us down, the ‘ideal’ job fails to meet our expectations further down the track, and we become bored with our ‘material toys’. No, in all these things we should never seek happiness. Our happiness is only found in Jesus. He fills us with all we will ever need- so we needn’t crave for all these other things.
Lord I desire to come back to You
The ‘first love’ of my life
For happiness can’t be found in this world
But only in Jesus Christ
(M. S. LOWNDES