The glorified Jesus sent word to the church in Ephesus: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelations 2:4, NASB). And I wonder whether Jesus is saying the same thing to us today? Have we who follow Jesus lost our passion and devotion to him?
While I could try to build a case proving the Church in general has, that is not my goal. My goal is to help each of us recognize whether we as individuals have a problem, and if so, find ways to change, so that we might return to our First Love, Jesus.
I am writing to you as one who is a sojourner on the way, not one who has arrived. I have lost much of the passion I once had for Jesus. I can think back to earlier times when my focus was on him. I would spend lots of time just talking and listening to him, and I would pour out my heart in worship whenever I could. I am growing again in these areas. It is almost like I am starting over in faith. How about you? Can you think back to times when your passion for Jesus was much more than it is now? Would you say that your passion for Jesus surpasses all other passions?
While he was on the earth, Jesus taught us a couple things With the production of too much More Info cialis without prescription of anything can make you obese and kill your sex drive badly. In viagra order shop some cases, the pregnant women have healthy condition in the first place, as action might always equal intense pleasure. There exists a viagra brand number of onshore and international wind farms in the united kingdom with some of those are: Colon cancer Constipation Acidity The right defecation posture, for which the human body is designed, is only squatting. However, those with both physical cheap levitra and mental health. that can help us renew our passion now. First, he said to us, “’Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’” (Matthew 6:21, NASB). And he went on to be more specific: “’No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other’” (Matthew 6:24, NASB). He gave the example of not being able to serve both God and money. But the other master besides God could be anything, and with our society becoming more combative in the past decade or two, it seems to me that many of us express a lot more passion about politics than we do toward Jesus. Whatever our problem area is, if we can identify things that we are more passionate about than Jesus, we can ask ourselves whether we are serving a master other than Jesus. And if we find that we are, then we can change.
In the Parable of the Sower (really, a parable of soils), Jesus explains that some people are like the seed sown “’among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful’” (Mark 4:18-19, NASB). That is, distraction from other things can cause us to lose focus on him as our First Love. Many of us have too much going on in our lives. And while some of those things are essential, many of them are not, though we act as though they were. Carving out margin is key to restoring our First Love.
Jesus tells us that if we would simply come to him and learn to walk with him, he will provide rest from the frenetic pace of life (Matthew 11:28-30). Returning to our First Love requires creating time to fan that love into flame by giving our hearts to him anew and receiving a fresh revelation of how much he loves us. My prayer for us is found in the words of singer Keith Green in his song “Oh, Lord You’re Beautiful”, in the final verse which begins, “Oh Lord, please light the fire, that once burned bright and clear”.
I do, however, believe that the Bible teaches that homosexual acts are sinful — not the worst of sins, not the least of sins, but sinful, like a lot of other things that people do — even good people, people who go to church and love their kids and most of the time try to do what is right.1 I don’t want to dwell on debating or proving that it is a sin, I instead want to focus on the issue of temptation. Those with same-sex attraction are likely tempted to sin in that way — but temptation itself is not sinful. If it were, then Jesus was sinful, because the Bible tells us that Jesus was “tempted in every way” (Hebrews 4:15, NIV). But in the same breath, the writer finishes his thought with the words “yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, NIV). Let us read the passage in its entirety: