Ants in the Pants of Faith

Our New Community Group (fancy title for Sunday School class) recently dwelt on the impact our faith is having in our lives and the lives around us.  I subsequently spent some time mediating on Revelation 2:1-5 and Jeremiah 17:7-10.

I’m challenged by these passages — Revelation 2:1-5 and the charge to/against the church at Ephesus seems to capture what I think of when speaking of “benign neglect.”  Here was a church body, a people who had done “good works,” endured for Christ’s sake, attempted to remain pure — and yet … they had been weighed and found wanting — how?

They had “left their first love.” (NKJV)  The NIV renders it “forsaken your first love.”

With such commendations as Christ had given the church at Ephesus, how could they have “left their first love?”  And could such a charge be applicable to me?

As I’ve prayed and spent time with God on this, here is what I have concluded:  I’ve left my first love in that I’ve more and more come to rely on self.  I’ve replaced love of Christ (as first love) with love of self.  I find that I “run on the momentum” achieved from an earlier time — when Christ clearly was above all and my relationship with Him was very real and personal.  The farther I get from the “moment of diversion” (which actually happens over time), the less effective, the less visional, the more “set in my ways” and more susceptible I become to the world and Satan’s traps (in the guise of “reasoning”).  Ultimately, I become without salt.

Oh, I love God; I love Christ.  But I’ve subtly substituted myself ahead of that love.  It shows in my elevation of comfort, convenience, seeking of fulfillment in many ways apart from God.  I think of Luke 8:14 – “The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.”

Thus, I don’t generally value what God values — at least not as highly as He does.  I don’t seek Him and naturally, as a result, I lack a Spirit-filled and guided life — at least it’s not what it could be, and my growth and impact is thus not what it could be.

God has drawn me to Hosea 10:12b — “Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.”

I desire to “experience Christ” — to go deeper with Him in a lasting way.  I’m wonder if such an experience, such a journey begins with this idea from Hosea.

May all of us return to and/or remain with our first love and do the first works (Rev 2:4).