First Love's Sacred Space: Revelation 2:4

 

Revelation 2:4- "But I have this against you, that you have left your first love."

Have you ever made a priority list? Having priorities is important for me. I use to-do lists because I am prone to distraction. As important as priorities are, though, I want to say something that may sound contradictory to what is normally taught. Avoid prioritizing God! You read it right. 

The Context of First Love

Why do I say that? Revelation 2 tells the story of a church that worked hard for the faith. They persevered during persecution. They even cleaned house when they discovered false teachers in their midst. But somehow they had lost their way. Detrimentally, they abandoned their first love. 

We teach in the church that losing our first love means we have put other things above God. Maybe we prioritized some sin in our life or we put all of our energy into our careers. While prioritizing other things over God may have implicated Ephesus (Revelation 2:5), the wider context of scripture speaks to a deeper meaning of first love that could explain God's reaction to this church. 

To understand the implications of first love you have to understand first who God is. God declared, "I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God" (Isaiah 45:5). God does not share the space with other things we place beside Him. He is wholly other. He resides in a different category. He is incomparable. He is incompatible with anything that rivals His place in our lives. To place Him even at the top of a list of priorities minimizes His divine nature through our earthly concerns.   

Understanding First Love Through First Fruits and the Firstborn

Two accounts illustrate the meaning of first love for God. Leviticus 23 presented the first fruits offering for God's people: "When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and you gather its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest" (Leviticus 23:10). This law required the Hebrew people to offer their very best crop before they used any other. The first grain was the finest grain (Leviticus 2:1,4). The first fruit offering was designated for the Lord and for no other use. To give any other offering was to corrupt the exclusive purpose of the first yield. 

Cain and Abel's story illustrates the importance of reserving our first and best for God alone (Genesis 4:1-5). God rejected Cain's offering, but accepted Abel's sacrifice. Why? Abel's offering represented the firstborn of his flock, signifying how this animal was specifically designated by God for his offering. Leviticus 27:26 explains how God set apart the firstborn of their flock for His exclusive purposes. God accepted Abel's offering for many reasons, but they all pointed back to Abel offering the best of what He had already received from God. To give anything other than the first of what God has given us always represents half-hearted devotion offered from less than our best. 

Life Application

If the first fruits offering, whether from the harvest or flock, reflects the antecedent of our first love, then our love for God can never share the space with any other love. That means we give God the very best of what we have of our hearts before we give our hearts to any other. 

Here are the implications of our exclusive, first love for God. First, you need to take God off your priority list. God is not your first love of many. He is your only love. Most of us either live according to an implicit or explicit rule that God is first in our lives. Again, there is nothing wrong with that, except it changes how you express love to others. If you place God in the same category as other priorities then you could give others what rightfully belongs to Him. That was the problem in Ephesus. God does not represent your top priority in your life. He represents your life. 

Next, loving God exclusively means others can receive what He has given you. The best you give to God will always be the best for someone else. There is a difference between conjuring up love that you have never personally experienced and loving from the overflow of God's intimate care for you. The former is an empty gift that originates from an incomplete understanding of God's love. The latter represents love borne out of a personal encounter with God. Your exclusive love for God will always be His best for someone else. 

Third, first love means you choose God before anything or anyone else. That's right. Nothing else matters next to God. Nothing else can stand in the same category with God. You choose God and your spouse receives the overflow of His love for you. When you choose God, every relationship in your life receives the outpouring of His devoted affection for you. My wife and I have decided that we can tell when one of us has not been meeting with Jesus. By neglecting our love for God it impacts how we express love for one another. Lesson learned. Nothing shares God's space. 

So what might first love look like? Here are some basic examples of first love from Jesus' teachings and daily practices. Notice His devotion to the Father and His love for others: 

• A daily time to meet with God (Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12, 22:39-44)
• Prayer and fasting (Matthew 6:5-18,11:25; Luke 4:1-2) 
• Focus on the Word (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 12:24; John 17:17)
• Self-denial (Matthew 16:24, 27:32-56; John 3:30)
• Obedience (Mark 14:36; John 5:19; Hebrews 5:8)
• Ministry to the physical needs of people (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 7:31-37; Luke 13:10-13; John 2:1-12)
• Ministry to the spiritual needs of people (Luke 19:1-10; John 3:1-21; John 4:1-26)
• Acknowledgement of the rejected (Mark 10:46-50; Luke 7:36-50; John 4:27)

First love for God is His call for all followers of Jesus to live on purpose and love on point.  

Scriptures for further study

Revelation 2:1-7

Leviticus 23:9-14

Genesis 4:1-5

Leviticus 27:26-28