Revelation 2: 4-5a – “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works...” (NKJV)
This is part of the rather stark warnings that Jesus gives to the chruches in Asia in the Revelations of John. And during a Bible study on the chapter last night, we had some discussions around just what it meant to "repent and do the first works." One way to understand what is said here is "turn back to the way you loved at first", or "work / love as you did when you first came to love me". (Other translations actually make that distinction... NRSV, NIV, etc.) But how do we practically understand the need to do that in our modern contexts of being the Church waiting for Christ's return?
New romantic relationships are exciting and fun. There’s an almost electric spark the first time two people who are falling in love hold hands. We find ourselves shifting schedules and finding reasons to be near this person who just a short time ago we may not have even known. We want to do anything we can to please and make them happy. Phone conversations when you aren’t together can be about absolutely nothing, and you don’t mind talking as long as you can just to hear about even the most mundane things in the other person’s life. We tend to put our very best foot forward as well. We don’t let all the crazy out at once! (After all, we don’t want to scare them away.) We want to impress the person we are trying to get to fall for us like we have fallen for them. It’s as if we suspend the rest of living to grasp these magical moments of first love as tightly as we can.
