Our First Love
By Pastor Mark Downey
March 18, 2012
Scripture Reading: Revelation 2:1-4
he exact phrase “our first love” is not found in the Bible, but it is generally recognized to be from Rev. 2:4, “Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love.” In other words, when God called His people and said I want you for My bride and at first they were ecstatic, but later became less than excited, there was a problem. One has only to look at so many variants of re-formed churches, of splintering and denominationalism, whose original zeal had long departed and among whom so much declined, that an attempt to reinvent the warmth and excitement they once enjoyed can be typified with the church at Ephesus and for the last 2000 years can rear its ugly head anywhere and at anytime. We constantly hear of revival, but more often than not it is nothing more than changing their reformation from the hands of the Divine Potter to the hands of spiritual paramedics with good intentions forming the clay in their own image of a revived vessel. I recently listened to a sermon online titled ‘Returning to Our First Love,’ which means whatever they first loved, they had moved away from it. When I got married, people said I had a smile on my face from cheek to cheek… for the whole day! And in typical fashion we had a beautiful honeymoon in Hawaii. To this day, I have the same feelings I had on my wedding day, but after our first year of marriage, I would sometimes be remiss in opening a door for my bride or lapse in giving her a bouquet of flowers and she would say, “Oh, is the honeymoon over?” And I would say, “Nooo, our love grows with each passing day; it just keeps getting better and better.”
