Have you left your first Love?

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

When I began my journey on studying the book of Revelation, I had no idea what the Lord was going to show me.  Of course, the obvious things like the tribulation and the last days I expected to learn about.  Then I came to chapter 2 when the Lord begins writing to the seven churches who really existed in the days that the apostle John was writing this letter.

The first church was the church in Ephesus.  This church was a strong witness to the dark city they were planted in.  Christ commended them for their diligent work for the gospel, perseverance in trials and their intolerance for sin in the church.  But one thing they did lack:  A love for the Lord.  All their outward service to Him was great, they were evangelizing to the lost and helping those in need, but when it came to their hearts, their love had grown cold for the Lord.
 This was a wake up call to me!  I can be doing everything I should be doing as a Christian in the service department, but not realizing the fire in my heart has burnt out a long time ago.  

Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."

We need to continually be doing a love test on our hearts.  I feel like I wake up everyday and carry out all my responsibilities, which I should be doing, but forget to check my heart and my motives for carrying out these tasks.
Then the Lord gives us the command in verse 5, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen: repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place- unless you repent."

Have we forgotten the miry clay He has brought us out of?  Have we forgotten where we should be if He had not had mercy on us?  I know where I should be right now and it's in utter darkness, eternally separated from the presence of God.
Oh Lord, please forgive us for losing our first love. Forgive us for forgetting where You have brought us from, how You have saved us when we were on our way to hell.  Give us the burning love for you that we had at first when your Spirit first gave us life.  May we not only serve You with good deeds, but also with a heart that loves Christ.

One Thing is Needed

              The last few months God has been burdening my heart to learn what it truly means to worship Him.  I've been blessed to inherit many of my dad's books from his library and quite a few are specifically written on worship.  You may think of worship as the time you sing songs at church or a biblestudy, but I have come to find out it springs out of your heart and shows through every day of your life.  One of the books that I read is titled, "How To Worship Jesus Christ" by Joseph S. Carroll, so many of things I will write is from that book.
            The first chapter is focused on Luke 10:41-42 which goes, "And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."
           As a busy mother and wife, many things are necessary to manage our home, be a helper to my husband, and bring up our children in the Lord.  By the time you are done with cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, disciplining the kids, getting them off to school, or homeschooling you have little hours left in the day.  This doesn't even include the things you need to do for a ministry you are serving in at church.  Helping with a ladies meeting, going to a biblestudy, bringing someone a meal, planning a baby shower, discipling a younger woman.  There are a lot of things that demand our attention!
             I would venture to say that most of us women, if not all of us, can relate to Martha.  Now all the things I just listed are good things.  God calls us to make disciples, study His word, serve in the church, give to missions, pray for others, but if we do all those things and leave out what is the most needed, then we will always fail to truly worship Him in our daily activities.
             Now if we go back and look at Luke 10:39 it says Mary was "seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word."   
              John Macarthur comments on this passage,"Most people, unfortunately, are exactly like Martha - preoccupied, distracted, too busy serving to sit at the Savior's feet. Living in a high-tech age, we tend to be driven by time clocks, deadlines, schedules, appointments, obligations, assignments, and urgent things beyond our control. Few people feel they can afford to put worship at the top of their "To Do" list.  The truth is, we can't afford not to. Worship is ultimately our first priority. Nothing on anyone's agenda is more important."
                 The Lord isn't saying to not be busy. As women we will be busy and we will always have a lot on our plate. If you read Proverbs 31:10-31, you see that this woman who is said to be excellent and fear the Lord, is a very busy woman. In vs 13 she is working with her hands, vs 14 and 15 she is preparing food for her family, vs 16 she is making a profit to help financially, vs 19 to 22 she is making her family and others clothing and vs 27 she is not idle.  But if you notice in vs 25 her intimate relationship with the Lord is shown by her trust and confidence in her God, in good times and bad. We may be "busy" with many things tugging at us from all different directions, but may we not be anxious and troubled by them, and may we never leave out the most important, the most needed thing of all.
                Joseph Carroll writes in his book that, "the best time to worship is, of course, in the morning, in that time that we call a quiet time."  But what is a quiet time?  I used to think it was a time when I would read a few chapters of the book of the Bible I was going through and pray for the people on my prayer list.  That is not a quiet time, that is a study time and a time for intercession, but not a quiet time.  
                Matthew 6:6 says, "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."  You need to be alone. Whether you are in a closet, a room, a forest, or a car. The main thing is you get alone with you Father.  When we pray, we enter into the very presence of God only by the blood of Jesus.  May that great truth never grow dull to us. We need to be in awe of not only what God has done for us, but who He is.  These are the things we should think on when we are having our quiet time.  Instead of looking at the clock and saying, 'I only have a few minutes to get through my prayer list and read these few verses and then I can go on about my day', we should simply be bowing down and worshiping the Lamb of God who was slain for us.  The only One who is worthy of our worship.
                 Psalm 27:4 says, "One thing I have desired of the LORD, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to meditate in His temple."  David was a great man, a great leader, a king, an amazing psalmist, but the only thing he desired was to behold the beauty of the Lord and have intimate fellowship with God.  We must seek Him with all our heart!  
                Now back to Martha and Mary.  Martha was not the only one busy - Mary was busy too, just in a different way. Martha was allowing all the "things" in her life to swallow her up and spit her out. She was complaining against the Lord and then commanding Him to do something about it. She was so distracted by the world around her that she completely missed the most important part.  I used to read this story and think the difference between Martha and Mary is their personalities. Martha is busy and involved in a lot of things and Mary is quiet and reserved.  I've come to see that that's not it at all.  The difference between these two women is this: Mary made a choice. Martha did not.  It's natural for women to be looking after our home, cooking up dinner in the kitchen and ordering people around to help in this way and that way.  We must make a choice to seek the Lord. And it's not an east choice. As we fulfill our calling to the Lord, may we not forget the one thing which is needed to set the foundation of a Christ glorifying life. May we consciously make a daily choice to seek hard after the Lord with all our heart and cast off every hindrance that is weighing us down. May we sit at His feet and adore the One who gave His life for us and experience a personal love between you and your God. May we commune with Him in complete aloneness, almost as if there were no one else in the world.  May we pour out our love on the Savior's feet, just as Mary poured out the costly oil.  
              
 "We were created to worship Jesus Christ. We were created for Him, to become something to Him in order that He might find pleasure in us. But this demands discipline. This demands self-renunciation. This demands the mortifying of the flesh. This demands the taking out of our lives everything that does not contribute to the one great objective."

It's Not Easy Being A Friend

Throughout our lives all of us will experience different friendships. Some are constant and some get put on hold for awhile and then they reunite again. Some, because of our sin, come to an end completely. Only as a Christian can you truly experience true friendship. The main ingredient to a successful friendship is love, and because God is love, if you are not one of God's children through Christ, you can never truly be a friend to someone. Proverbs 17:17 says "A friend loves at all times." That verse pretty much sums up everything, but if you really want to get into the details you have to dig deeper. In order to love someone at all times involves labor and sacrifice. John 15:12-13 says, "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Wow, now that's sacrifice- laying down one's life for their friends! Now we know the One who has done that for us, Jesus Christ. Friendship is a lot of hard work. You can't just be in your own world, do your own thing and wake up one day and expect to have strong friendships without you putting some effort into it. As sinners it is so tempting to just throw in the towel and say "I give up!", but that is not what Christ calls us to do and that's not what He did with us. Friendship also requires loving honesty. Proverbs 27:5-6 says, "Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." Sometimes being a friend and truly loving someone means having to tell them the truth when no one else will. Yeah it might hurt for a minute, but when you count the cost in the long run it is worth it. Friendship is a two-way street and if you make your life a one-way path, it is going to get pretty lonely. Let us look to Christ as our perfect example of a true friend, the One who laid down His life for us.

Being "Sore" for the Lord

If you know me you know that I love to exercise and get a good workout! The best workouts are when two days later you discover a muscle you didn't even know you had because it is so sore! You worked that muscle so hard and you have evidence of your hard work even days later. To me it's kind of the same with our service to the Lord. When we labor and stretch ourselves for the Lord we feel it! When we give our all to Him in everything we do and don't just keep within our comfort zone our 'muscles' for the Lord become sore; but it's a good sore. I don't know about you, but I like to be sore after a workout. It tells me that I didn't waste my time and that it was well worth it. It also tells me that I stepped out of my comfort zone and really pushed myself. If I don't even get a bit sore the next day I tell myself I need to do a more strenuous workout next time because my body is getting used to that level of activity. It's like that in our Christian life sometimes: If we do just enough to get by or never step out of our comfort zone we will never get "sore". Are you stretching yourself for the Lord? Or are you doing just enough so that you can tell yourself that you are okay? Compared to what Jesus has done for us, our service to Him is just a drop in the bucket. May we workout our 'muscles' for the Lord in our service to Him for His glory. Just like when you need to up your weight during an exercise or maybe do more repititions for another, we need to up our service for Christ. We need to add more weight, more repititions. Let us run the race with endurance, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Is Jesus your Best Friend?

For most of us we have best friends, our husbands, wives and diciplers. I know for me, as soon as something happens- whether good or bad - the first thing I want to do is get on the phone or on the computer and tell someone. There's nothing wrong with sharing your good news or needing counsel from a brother or sister, but do you go to your heavenly Father first? Is He the One that you praise first and give the glory to when you receive the answered prayer? When you get in an argument or you're having a bad day, do you pour out your heart to Him first? I think a lot of us, including me, have to keep this area in check at all times. It is so easy to not even notice that we called our friend and vented to them, instead of going to our Rock and our Sustainer first. We justify it by saying, "I just wanted to tell them so they can pray for me". Is that really the reason? God never sleeps, never slumbers, He loved us before the foundation of the world, go to Him! He will give you the rest you need for your soul that your your friend can never give you. Is Jesus the One you run to, or is He last on your list? If you lost everything, everyone in a moment, would we go to Him who is sovereign over everything, or would we grow bitter in our hearts? As David cries out to the Lord, "This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me." Do you go to His word when you need to be revived, or do you depend on some temporary earthly thing? Jesus will carry you through this life all they way into eternity to be with Him. May we let our cries go before our Heavenly Father, Lord of the Heavens and earth, Gentle Shepherd, Coming King, Savior, Lamb of God, Jesus- our Best Friend!

Patience is a Virtue

In our busy lives from day to day we think we have it all planned out: wake up, eat breakfast, get kids ready, go to the store, get back in time for a nap if needed, ect. Sometimes, actually a lot of times, it doesn't go according to our plan. Do we groan and complain when that happens, or do we accept it as God's will with patience? It seems like the past few days I've been noticing that I'm not as patient as I thought I was. I can't imagine what Job had to go through; all of a sudden his whole life changed in an instant, and everything dear to him in this world was gone; and in all that he still did not sin. That's amazing to me! Not only do I sin, I complain against my husband or someone near me that has nothing to do with the situation at all! James 5:9 says "Do not complain, brethren, against one another...". When you are irritated by your day being messed up, or your plans not going well, don't take it out on innocent bystanders, which are usually our husband and kids! I know I am too often guilty of this. James continues in chapter 5 verse 11: "We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful." We can endure through whatever bump comes in the road, we just need to trust God and not try to fix everything on our own! Be patient, for you do not see the big picture which God has already drawn for you before the foundation of the world. Wait on Him, He will never fail you. Isaiah 40:31

Planning: Good or Not?

This week in our Titus Two study in the book of James we went through verses 4:13-17 and James is telling his readers to be careful when you make plans to not boast about your plans that haven't even happened yet. I know God wants us to plan carefully and with wisdom because that would be unwise of us to just throw our day together the morning we wake up: "I guess today I will go to the store, wait maybe I will just do laundry" and then nothing gets done! What James is saying is to not make plans without consulting God. In verse 15 it says, 'Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills we will live and also do this or that'. So then do we have to always say 'If the Lord wills, I will have pancakes for breakfast'? I don't think so, but we should always remember that God is sovereign and His plans are always over our plans. He alone knows the future, our life is like a vapor and we don't know what our life will be like tomorrow. I think of Mary who probably had all kinds of plans with her future husband Joseph and then suddenly an angel of the Lord appears to her and her life is completely turned around. Are we ready for a change in what we think are our 'perfect plans' for the future? I guarantee you that the Lord probably has something different planned for us than what we think 'should' happen, but it is always for our good. Thank God He doesn't allow our lives to go the way WE plan, but the way He has planned it.