Shalom to you, beloved saints and righteous children of God!

Today I was talking with some sisters about losing our first love, and it was laid on my heart to share my thoughts on this subject with you.

The question of losing one’s first love comes up very often among believers. In my 22 years in church I have never yet seen this subject raised without self-condemnation, or simply condemnation from our dear brothers and sisters, including ministers. Some time ago the Lord revealed to me the heart of this problem.

We all remember that gracious time when we had just believed in Jesus. How wonderful it was! Everything looked marvellous to us, love simply poured out of us, everything was easy and simple. But time passed, and all this wonderful state disappeared somewhere.

We were told that this was our first love and that we had lost it because of some sin. And so harsh times began in the Christian’s life: fighting sin, winning back territory occupied by the enemy, mortifying our flesh, being crucified with Christ… In short, the list can go on and on.

But in fact the answer is something else entirely. When the Lord revealed to me that grace is given not only to unbelievers so that they can be saved, but also to believers, so that they can live the full, abundant life promised by Christ Himself, I understood something.

Think for a minute and remember how we have traditionally evangelised people. What did we tell them? If we describe an average evangelistic appeal in a Protestant church, it sounds roughly like this: “Dear friend! The Lord loves you! Come to Him just as you are. You don’t need to stop smoking, drinking, sleeping around and so on for Him to accept you. When you come to Him, He Himself will set you free from all this. His salvation is given to us by grace, and all you need to do is repent of your sins, ask for forgiveness and believe that Jesus died for you!” And by and large all this is true. I won’t analyse every phrase now from the point of view of Christ’s finished work, but the point is that we receive salvation freely, by grace, and there is nothing a person can do about it. And so the person has believed. He is full of joy, the Lord has accepted and forgiven him, a huge weight has fallen from his shoulders. His joy seems to have no limit. He walks in grace.

Then he comes to church. And off it goes: 7 steps to sanctification, 5 steps to healing, how to overcome this sin and that sin, how to pray properly, how to keep your healing, you need to love God, you need to sow so that God will bless you….

Do you understand what is happening? He is immediately put under the law, which a person is not only unable to keep, but which is also the strength of sin [1 Cor.15:56]! An unbearable burden is laid on him, and then there is no room for joy or love. I am not surprised that people leave churches feeling deceived. But both they and those who stay in spite of it all live under constant condemnation because they could not, or cannot, fulfil all the church’s requirements, which have been presented to them as God’s.

So it turns out that the person seems to have lost his first love, but in fact the person who was saved by grace has turned to a different gospel [Gal.1:6-7]. Willingly or unwillingly, he has put himself under the law, which he is unable to keep. He has turned his eyes away from Jesus Christ and what HE has done, to himself and his own works.

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit (by grace), are you now being made perfect by the flesh (by the law)?
–Galatians 3:1-3

“You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law (by works); you have fallen from grace…” [Gal.5:4]

And yet he is told that he has lost his first love, driving him into an even heavier yoke of condemnation and self-condemnation. I am not condemning the ministers who preach all these legalistic teachings in our churches now. After all, they were taught this too.

But I have noticed that when God turned my eyes from myself back to Christ, the joy I had when I first believed came back. And my friends who have also received the revelation of grace testify to the same. It is the joy of walking in freedom, the joy of no longer having to strain to reach the standards set by the church, but not by God. The joy of knowing God’s love, which passes knowledge, and the joy of abiding in it. The joy that God produces fruit in your life, the joy of new revelations of what HE has done, and delight in fellowship with Him without any obligations or requirements. The joy that you are accepted, truly accepted just as you are. And then it seems that your first love has come back too.

I remember that when I received the revelation of grace, it seemed to me that this was exactly when I was born again, but that was only a feeling. I know that it happened much earlier and that I had not lost my first love. I had simply been deceived by the devil into focusing on myself, and the joy of experiencing a close relationship with the heavenly Father had been stolen from me. But now I simply bathe in the experience of His love. And not because I have started to love Him more. But because: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” [1 Jhn.4:10].

I remember once reading a book by some Christian psychologist about how to express your love to your children. And in this book there was one phrase that I found confirmed in Scripture. This is what the author wrote: “Children don’t radiate love. They reflect it.” He meant that children reflect the love they have stored up from us, but don’t have it in themselves.

It is exactly the same with us. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 it is written: “But we all, with unveiled face, BEHOLDING as in a mirror THE GLORY OF THE LORD, ARE BEING TRANSFORMED INTO THE SAME IMAGE from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord”, and in the letter to the Ephesians: “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height; to KNOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST which passes knowledge; that you may be FILLED WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD”. [Eph.3:17-19]

Do you see what the point is? Like children, we do not have love in ourselves. Only by knowing it can we be filled with ALL the fullness of God, and only by beholding Christ with unveiled face are we transformed into His image, and then His love, with which we are being filled, pours out through us, and we walk in that love.

It is just important to remember that it is His love, and it cannot be lost!

With love in Christ, your sister Nina :-).