Questions of Love {Judges 6:1 - 8:35}
12:30 AM
I couldn’t help
but wonder what makes a person leave their first love? I searched reasons why we step off the
path God sets before us. I discovered this from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. We face the same challenges that the Israelites had. Jesus calls us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Our first love is the love Christ gives us for God and each other.
Take time as you read this list; you may discover just how easily you slip. After spending time reading this list, ask God to help you remove these distractions (idols) and make you strong (like Gideon) to take the next step of faith. After all, God is sending us out and He is with us!
40 Evidences That You May
Have Left Your First Love
Have Left Your First Love
- You can go hours or days without having more
than a passing thought of Him.
- You don’t have a strong desire to spend time
with Him.
- You don’t have a strong hunger for the Word;
Bible reading is a “chore”—something to mark off your “to do” list.
- Spending time in prayer is a burden/duty
rather than a delight.
- Your worship is formal, dry, lifeless, merely
going through the motions.
- Private prayer and worship are almost
non-existent . . . cold and dry.
- You are more concerned about physical health,
well-being, and comfort than about the well-being and condition of your
soul.
- You crave physical food, while having little
appetite for spiritual food.
- You crave human companionship more than a
relationship with Christ.
- You spend more time and effort on your
physical appearance than on cultivating inner spiritual beauty to
please Christ.
- Your heart toward Christ is cold and
indifferent; not tender as it once was, not easily moved by the Word,
talk of spiritual things, etc.
- Christianity is more of a checklist than a
relationship with Christ.
- You measure spirituality (yours/others’) by
performance rather than the condition of the heart.
- Christianity is defined more what by what you
“do” than who you “are” (“doing” vs. “being”).
- Your obedience and service are motivated and
fueled by expectations of others or a desire to impress others, more
than by passion for Christ.
- You are more concerned about what others think
and pleasing them, than about what God knows and pleasing Christ.
- Your service for Christ and others is
motivated by a sense of duty or obligation.
- You find yourself becoming resentful over the
hardships and demands of serving Christ and others.
- You can talk with others about kids, marriage,
weather, and the news, but struggle to talk about the Lord and
spiritual matters.
- You have a hard time coming up with something
fresh to share in a testimony service at church or when someone asks,
“What’s God been doing in your life?”
- You are formal, rigid, and uptight about
spiritual things, rather than joyful and winsome.
- You are critical or harsh toward those who are
doctrinally off-base or living in sin.
- You enjoy secular songs, movies, and books
more than songs or reading material that point you to Christ.
- You prefer the company of people who don’t
love Christ, to the company and fellowship of those who do.
- You are more interested in recreation, entertainment,
and having “fun” than in cultivating intimacy with Christ through
worship, prayer, the Word, and Christian fellowship.
- You display attitudes or are involved in
activities that you know are contrary to Scripture, but you continue
in them anyway.
- You justify “small” areas of disobedience or
compromise.
- You have been drawn back into sin habits that
you put off when you were a young believer.
- “Little” things that used to disturb your
conscience, no longer do.
- You are slow to respond to conviction over
sin—or you ignore it altogether.
- You enjoy certain sins and want to hang onto
them. You are unwilling to give them up for Christ.
- You are not grieved by sin—it’s no big deal to
you.
- You are consistently allured by certain sins.
- You are self-righteous—more concerned about
sin in others’ lives than in your own.
- You are more concerned about having the
right position than the right disposition.
- You tend to hold tightly to money and things,
rather than being quick to give to meet the needs of others.
- You rarely give sacrificially to the Lord’s
work.
- You rarely have a desire or burden to give,
when you hear of legitimate financial needs within the Body, your
church, or a ministry.
- Accumulating and maintaining material “things”
consumes more time and effort on your part than seeking after and
cultivating spiritual riches.
- You have broken relationships with other
believers that you are unwilling or have not attempted to reconcile.
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: "The words of
him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven
golden lampstands."
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent . . . .
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." (Rev. 2:1–7)
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent . . . .
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." (Rev. 2:1–7)
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