First Love

Revelation 2:4-5
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.


Luke 14:25-27
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."

Do you really love God more than anyone else?

I have had to ask myself that question a lot of late. I have sometimes had it pop up out of nowhere, a prompting from the Lord to examine myself perhaps. Other times I have had to deliberately ask it, like David opening himself up to the examination of the Lord ('search my heart, O God'). Either way, I can now never simply answer it out of hand. I must truly look in my heart, expose myself to the Lord, and reveal with whom my love dwells.

We have all been there, facing this question. A preacher or pastor will rhetorically ask the question, and the assumed answer is: Yes! Emphatically, we feel in our hearts that this is the answer. But what if we treat the question like a real question. Like a question that requires an deep answer. Not a simple answer, but one that we have thought through and meditated on, prayed over and asked God for help. We always talk about 'putting God first' and that He takes 'top priority', but is that practically, actually true?

My hope is that no one has to work out this question in the same way that I'm having to work it out. Nonetheless, I would be naive if I didn't believe some people will have to answer it in the midst of the most challenging of circumstances. My recommendation? Work this out now, know that you know where your priorities are, and when crisis strikes, as it will from time to time, you will be able to face it with truth rather than the hurricane of emotion that inevitably follows. Find verses that you cling to, the statements and promises from the Word that give you the clearest indication of who God is and who are you in Him. These are the truths that will sustain you in the hardest of times.

For me, the following have helped, and I offer them to you not as a one-size-fits-all solution but rather as an example of how one man has found solace through the Word:

2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Psalm 16
Dwelling in joy

Psalm 18
The reaction of the Lord to an emergency need of one of His children

Psalm 23
He brings peace when one could feel surrounded by enemies

Philippians 2:1-11
The humility of Christ

Colossians 1:15-23
The preeminence of and reconciliation to Christ

This has been my constant refuge in this time. Certainly, I have had crisis moments. In those moments, however, I have asked and re-asked, "Do I love God more than anything or anyone else?" Yet I look to the Scriptures, and I see who God is, and I experience His nearness, and I realize that only He could provide such peace. And so I say, "Yes, Lord, I do love You more than anyone else."