Renewing our first love
Faustino de Jesús Zamora Vargas
SUMMARY: When we first come to know Christ, we are filled with a sense of fascination and love for Him and His church. However, over time, we can become complacent and lose that initial passion. The Bible warns us not to abandon our first love and to continue to seek and experience that fervor for Christ. This requires a constant spiritual warfare against sin, the flesh, and the world. Christ calls us to remember our initial love for Him and to return to it, showing the world the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. Let us not forget the gift of salvation and forgiveness that we received by grace and let us hold onto our first love for Christ.
When we meet the Lord and begin our walk with Him there is a kind of fascination that envelops our entire being. The Spirit of God, who knows the vicissitudes of the newly redeemed, forgiven heart and now feels lifted up and relieved of the oppressive burdens of the world, begins to do the work of healing within us, and our spirit irretrievably surrenders to Christ and his church and the world becomes a new one, we count the days so that this Sunday arrives soon, which takes forever to arrive, we miss communion and the fraternal embrace of the last time, the praise we hear at home is like an energizing tune that it invigorates the feelings and the desire to exercise charity to those who appear. It is as if we take heaven by storm every day and we already see angels around us and Christ at our side and the church seems to us the earthly paradise full of men and women filled with the Spirit that overflow glasses of holiness. Love overflows us through the five senses; our perspective of reality is discovered differently. It is the climax of love, of our first love for Christ.
If you have ever questioned Christ's zeal for the love of his church and his children, Revelation chapters 2 and 3 can shed light on the subject and help you understand spiritual truths that may awaken in you. Again the fervor, dedication, passion, devotion and enthusiasm of those early days when he felt himself clothed with Christ from head to toe. He knows us and knows when our works, even bearing certain traits of authenticity and Christian sincerity, shed their love for Him and become pure routine, a kind of automatic and formalistic practice that only covers and satisfies appearances, but does not discover our true heart.
We must not fool ourselves. Somehow, we all abandon that first love at a certain moment and the Bible challenges us not only to remember those times when the Word of God did not cease to be proclaimed by our mouths, but to return to seek and experience that fervor that it consumed our insides and glorified God. Indifference, apathy, negligence, laziness are sins that displease God and divert us from the beautiful path of holiness. We are challenged every day to show the world the fruit of the Spirit that is produced in our being. Definitely the fruit of love, of love for our heavenly Father and for our neighbor, is and will continue to be the greatest spring that will propel us to greater achievements in our Christian life. But it is not about the love of the "here and now", but about the love that comes from that supernatural tenderness that was manifested "at the beginning" in the grace and the Spirit of Christ visible in each one of our acts. The Christian life is a constant spiritual warfare against sin, the flesh - that part of us that can be influenced by worldly passions and incites us to rebel against God, turn away from Him and do our will - and the world, who cry out. shouting because we return to the works of evil and perversion, let us forget this first love and turn our Christian walk into a mere religious and legalistic routine where things are done out of pure commitment.
Christ calls us not to abandon our first love and is saddened when we put other interests and priorities in the place that only belongs to Him. When this happens, when we try to excuse our laziness and lay down the spiritual weapons that once made us strong and godly. for that original and genuine love that caused the encounter with Jesus; When we begin to dismiss in our minds and hearts the great gift of salvation and forgiveness that we receive by grace, this process of abandoning that love that once oppressed our breasts with joy and immense peace begins right there. Do you remember the first time you felt the tender embrace of your heavenly Father at a time when you sought him out with fervor and total passion? Do you remember when you first looked like a hungry beggar for the food of God's Word and listened to his voice? Do you remember when you saw the face of God in sublime prayer or were dying to serve the needy moved by the glory of God in your life?
The message to return to the first love we felt for Jesus when we met him is valid for these times. There are churches and Christians who have stopped reflecting the light of their Lord because they forgot their dedication, they no longer love one another, they do not share the gospel of Salvation and above all, they do not repent of their sins. Christ reminds us: “Whoever receives my commandments and obeys them shows that he really loves me. And my Father will love the one who loves me, and I too will love him and show myself to him ”(John 14:21). Let us take hold of this beautiful promise of God's love and our love for Him. Let us return to the first love, to the seed, where only devotion, the fervor of self-giving and perfect communion with the Spirit of our redeemer count. It is not an alternative, but rather it should be your eternal, my eternal, our eternal vocation. God bless you!
If you have ever questioned Christ's zeal for the love of his church and his children, Revelation chapters 2 and 3 can shed light on the subject and help you understand spiritual truths that may awaken in you. Again the fervor, dedication, passion, devotion and enthusiasm of those early days when he felt himself clothed with Christ from head to toe. He knows us and knows when our works, even bearing certain traits of authenticity and Christian sincerity, shed their love for Him and become pure routine, a kind of automatic and formalistic practice that only covers and satisfies appearances, but does not discover our true heart.
We must not fool ourselves. Somehow, we all abandon that first love at a certain moment and the Bible challenges us not only to remember those times when the Word of God did not cease to be proclaimed by our mouths, but to return to seek and experience that fervor that it consumed our insides and glorified God. Indifference, apathy, negligence, laziness are sins that displease God and divert us from the beautiful path of holiness. We are challenged every day to show the world the fruit of the Spirit that is produced in our being. Definitely the fruit of love, of love for our heavenly Father and for our neighbor, is and will continue to be the greatest spring that will propel us to greater achievements in our Christian life. But it is not about the love of the "here and now", but about the love that comes from that supernatural tenderness that was manifested "at the beginning" in the grace and the Spirit of Christ visible in each one of our acts. The Christian life is a constant spiritual warfare against sin, the flesh - that part of us that can be influenced by worldly passions and incites us to rebel against God, turn away from Him and do our will - and the world, who cry out. shouting because we return to the works of evil and perversion, let us forget this first love and turn our Christian walk into a mere religious and legalistic routine where things are done out of pure commitment.
Christ calls us not to abandon our first love and is saddened when we put other interests and priorities in the place that only belongs to Him. When this happens, when we try to excuse our laziness and lay down the spiritual weapons that once made us strong and godly. for that original and genuine love that caused the encounter with Jesus; When we begin to dismiss in our minds and hearts the great gift of salvation and forgiveness that we receive by grace, this process of abandoning that love that once oppressed our breasts with joy and immense peace begins right there. Do you remember the first time you felt the tender embrace of your heavenly Father at a time when you sought him out with fervor and total passion? Do you remember when you first looked like a hungry beggar for the food of God's Word and listened to his voice? Do you remember when you saw the face of God in sublime prayer or were dying to serve the needy moved by the glory of God in your life?
The message to return to the first love we felt for Jesus when we met him is valid for these times. There are churches and Christians who have stopped reflecting the light of their Lord because they forgot their dedication, they no longer love one another, they do not share the gospel of Salvation and above all, they do not repent of their sins. Christ reminds us: “Whoever receives my commandments and obeys them shows that he really loves me. And my Father will love the one who loves me, and I too will love him and show myself to him ”(John 14:21). Let us take hold of this beautiful promise of God's love and our love for Him. Let us return to the first love, to the seed, where only devotion, the fervor of self-giving and perfect communion with the Spirit of our redeemer count. It is not an alternative, but rather it should be your eternal, my eternal, our eternal vocation. God bless you!
