Love Relationship Lost
by leaving Jesus in Second Place

     Our love relationship becomes lost with our Savior when we put the cares of this life before him. Jesus desires that we return to or come to a personal love relationship with him. Our God wants each of his children to put him first in their lives.

      Our First Love

     Many people have remembered their first love or sweetheart. When we think back to our first love, if some of us can remember that far, we can recall how important that relationship was in our lives. Our whole world revolved around the boy or the girl of our dreams. For most of each day and night, our thoughts focused on our first love. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives with our sweetheart and help fulfill their desires.

      It’s not unusual for people to have similar experiences with the Lord. Sometimes when a person has a spiritual experience with God, their greatest desire revolves around Jesus Christ. They experience the Lord’s intense love relationship many ways.

      As the years go by, God’s children may stop looking at him with total love and devotion. Many followers of Christ began to take their eyes off Jesus and look to the world for partial fulfillment.

      Our Faithful God hovers around his children and tries to draw them back to that intimate love relationship. Every situation’s different. Some righteous saints never leave their first love. Other saints of God travel in and out of a deep love for the Lord (John 10:9). When people walk away from our God of Grace, he still loves them.

⁴”Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. ⁵Remember the height from which 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�?(Rev. 2:4, 5, NIV).

      Jesus told the Ephesian Christians they had lost their first love. The saints struggled to serve their Savior, and yet something seemed wrong with their love relationship with God. Jesus Christ complained that they didn’t love him to the fullest.

²⁹And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: ³⁰And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment (Mark 12:29, 30, KJV).

      Why do Christians serve God? Do they serve him in order to earn a higher place in Heaven? Do they serve God because they see him as a stern judge who waits for mistakes, or do Christians serve God because they love him and desire to please him?

      People fear and love God for many reasons. What does Jesus mean when he speaks of first love? As I understand the Bible, Jesus wants us to live our lives for him. The Lord desires that we include him in all of our actions each day. The small details in our lives reflect our love relationship for him.

      The Lord knows our hearts. He knows how we think and what we cherish. He knows the desires we put before him. Jesus loves us with a Love that never stops: he only wants us to love him in return.

First Love Demanded by Jesus

      A generation had passed in Ephesus since Paul led them to Christ. The Ephesian Christians did not have their initial consuming zeal and fervent love relationship. After their original love relationship faded, the Ephesians continued to work as they had from the beginning. Their attitude changed from love to duty. They may have grown negative in their thoughts and actions.

Love Relationship with Jesus like dew on a rose

      The Hope of Glory told the Ephesians to �?Remember the height from which you have fallen. He longed for then to repent and return to their first love and relationship with him. The Ephesian Christians needed to make a conscious decision to love God.

      Our Eternal Light told the Church of Ephesus that he would remove their lampstand if they did not repent. The lampstand burned with a special light that shined on the people around it. The lampstand made the church visible and the Light from the Gospel drew people to the church.

      Churches have declined when Jesus takes away his Gospel Light. This happened many times in the history of the Christian Church.