First love or not ?

You probably recognise the scenario  or have experienced it at some time in the past. At church this morning, we sang a song called, "First Love," and one or or two people responded with prayers of repentance, telling the Lord that they wanted to return to their first love for Him. 

I understand where those prayers come from; the whole idea of having abandoned our first love for God is drawn from a letter written to the church in Ephesus; we can read it in Revelation chapter 2 verse 4. But I have to confess that I always feel a bit uncomfortable when the pastor or worship leader urges us all to "return to our first love," as that's something I don't want to do.

You see, the longer I know the Lord, the more I get to know Him and discover what He is really like, the more I realise that I love Him so much more now than I did in the beginning when I first gave my life to Him as a twelve year old. 

So when we sing songs about Jesus being our first love, I don't think of "first" in terms of time; I like to think of it in terms of priority or importance - asking myself, "Is Jesus truly first in my life? Is He more important  to me than anyone or anything else?"

It's so easy to allow other things to become the main focus of our affection or attention. It could be our work or our hobby, our family or our friends, our own reputation or wellbeing. So, even when we can honestly say that our love for God is more now than it was in the beginning, it's still worth pausing to ask ourselves if He is truly our first love; genuinely our number one.