My Love

I read the blog post a long time ago. It sat in my email box waiting all this time.

I email myself things to read later and have for years. It is my version of Pinterest. If I find them especially compelling, I save them in a file folder named "Important/Keep for Later."

But I have thought about this blog post literally since the day I read it. I have been wanting to find a time to expound on it but for some reason a post just never came together. 

Until today.

The post I read, and emailed to myself, was about what stirs your affection for Christ and draws affection away from Him. How everything we do basically draws us to Him or away from Him. The issue isn't right or wrong. It's what's right or wrong for each of us, outside of what Scripture mandates as sin.

{that's always bad for us}

As I moved through my days after reading this post, I started asking myself with each thing I did, 

Does this make me love Christ more?

It became a dangerous question to ask. 

Perhaps not everything we do can be classified this way. 

For instance, does doing the laundry or cooking or cleaning or running errands or the plethora of other things I do each day make me love Him more?

In a round about way, I guess so. 

And I, being the base person that I am, am typically safe when I'm terribly busy doing things I need to be doing. 

I think this is one reason the Lord keeps me so busy.

But there is down time. 

So outside of what I have to do each day, I started evaluating each thing I did with that question: Does this make me love Jesus more?

And the results were very convicting.

There were some areas revealed where I truly found my affection for Christ being dulled:

~mindless television

~browsing on Twitter outside of the people I follow

~certain music

~some movies, even ones I used to love

~particular books

~certain people and the way they speak about others

~places I could go, especially ones that take me back to the decade of debauchery

and there's more

I knew that these areas were places and situations where I immediately felt drugged and heavy. I hated the way I felt when I pulled myself away from these things. It was like pushing back from the table where you overindulged in a heavy meal. 

Sluggish and miserable.

I hated it. 

There were gray areas too. Places I could stay briefly and be fine. But staying a moment too long would tip me into a heavy place I didn't want to leave. 

I continued to filter my actions through this question and found it helped in guarding my thoughts, my spirit and my feelings about Christ and His kingdom.

I felt myself pulled toward things that stirred my emotions for Him.

And that was fine.

And good.

But this morning suddenly things clicked as to why it was so important for me to continually filter each and every thing I do, exhausting though it is.

We are studying Revelation in church.

It's been good.

Hard, but good.

I settled in to study the part of the letter in which Christ addresses the church at Ephesus. 

The word gently lifted off the page and pierced my heart:

"I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent."

And there is was. This was why God had taught and was still teaching me to so guard that love and affection for my Savior. 

It's easy to lose. 

Even when you are busy working for the church. For Christ. For Him. Doing what you think is best.  Serving. Being busy and pleasing and hearing affirmation and praise and rolling right along, perhaps even patting yourself on the back. 

The question seized my heart and repeated itself over and over again, relentlessly, demanding an answer:

Who do you love?

I was quick. 

"I love you, Lord. I do..."

But do I? My words say it, but does my life? 

Jesus called them out. He said, "You don't love me like you used to. And I know it. I cannot be fooled by your good works and your lofty deeds. I know..."

"But I do. I love you as I ever have."

I kept insisting it. 

Warren Wiersbe said this:

What is 'first love'? It is the devotion to Christ that so often characterizes the new believer: fervent, personal, uninhibited, excited, and openly displayed.

Oh. 

Well maybe I've gotten a little older and more mature in my faith.

Or perhaps I Tweeted and Honey Boo Boo'd my way straight into a huge pit of apathy.

Surely not.

I read the commentary and my eyes filled with tears. It said this love should look like a newly betrothed groom who clasps his love to his chest and declares for the first time that she is his.

Oh, that kind of love. 

I turned to Ephesians 3. Paul knew of this church's struggle with loving Christ. It's why he addressed this issue over and over in his letter to them:

"...you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God."

I set out under the morning sun to work this out with God. I asked Him to help me love Him more. More than any man or child or thing on this planet. I begged Him to teach me to love Him more.

And how I spend my time fit squarely in with that request.

Because Jesus said,

"Remember from where you have fallen

repent

do the deeds you did at first..."

What do I do that makes me love Christ more?

~spending deep and long times in the Word

~long, dedicated, purposeful prayer 

~intentional time spent in praise of Him

~speaking truth to myself initially and others secondly

~serving only where God tells me to and prayerfully considering any and all offers or requests to serve

~cultivating a listening ear for and an obedient heart toward the Spirit 

There's more, of course. 

And don't you dare slant any of this to a legalistic aspect that argues we are free in grace. 

We are free to serve and obey a risen Lord who deserves nothing less than a life spent in worshipful servant hood and obedience flowing from a heart so grateful for salvation that a simple eternity isn't long enough to fully express the gratitude felt. 

He deserves to be loved first, fully and completely.

And this is why that email from me to me sat in my inbox for so long. It was waiting to come together with the Word of God in a way that I hope and pray change me and make me more like His Son. 

I'd better put it in the "Important/Keep for Later" file.