Your First Love

Who or what is your first love? What's the thing you want most when you're tired or lonely or upset? Who do you think about when you first wake up?

Lately, I think my first love in the morning is my down comforter...or coffee...my first love in the afternoon is my lunch break...my first love in the evening is Lost on DVD...(Clay's been away this week, so we'll assume that Lost is taking a place usually taken by him.)

Based on the way I live my life, I wouldn't really call Christ my first love.

Last week, at our staff conference, one of our staff read to us from Revelations about the church in Ephesus (Rev 2):

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

So the speaker is saying that the church in Ephesus did a lot of good stuff...they worked hard, did good things, kept wickedness from themselves, endured hardship, persevered. But they still weren't completely right in the Lord's eyes because of one simple reason:

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.

What are the things you do at first when you're in love? For me, it was staying up late at night to talk on the phone and spend time with Clay. It was saving up all of my available time and money to travel to see him. It was thinking of him a hundred times a day--sending him emails or text messages. It was seeing fabulous gifts in a store window that he would love and buying them for him.

What does it really mean to love Christ like this? With fresh eyes? With new love? What does it mean to make Christ your first love?