I feel like we can never exhaust this topic which is also our experience daily. How can we overcome the loss of our first love for the Lord? How can we come back to Him to love Him with our first and our best love? We need to overcome the loss of the first love by giving Christ the first place, the preeminence, in everything.
In little things and in big things, in our daily life, we need to take the lead to give Christ the first place, checking with Him and enjoying Him first. Even when we go shopping or as we choose what to wear, we need to give the Lord the first place – give Christ the preeminence!
Love, life, light, and the lampstand
In Rev. 2:4-7 in the Lord’s speaking to the church in Ephesus, we see these four matters: love (loving the Lord), life (the tree of life), light (the shining of the lampstand), and the lampstand (the testimony). God is love, Christ is life, and the Spirit is light – the entire Triune God is love, life, and light for us to enjoy and be recovered to our first love.
To be an overcomer, we need to give the Lord the preeminence in everything – this is to love the Lord. When we love Him, we will enjoy Him as the tree of life! Then we together corporately will shine forth the divine light as the lampstand. It all starts with giving Christ the first place, the preeminence!
God gives us Christ – He must have the first place
We may think that, as we go through difficult situations, we need patience – so we ask the Lord to give us patience. At other times, we may think we really need love and understanding, so we ask the Lord for love and understanding. But what God gives us is not “things” such as patience, victory, love, understanding, etc – God gives us only Christ.
Christ is love, Christ is patience, Christ is understanding, and Christ is everything that we need! God doesn’t give us “something” to meet our need and to “patch up our situation”; He gives us Christ and He wants Christ to have the preeminence in our being.
If God would give us love, we would be loving persons and not depend on Him or take Christ as our everything. If God would give us victory, we would “thank Him and forget about Him”. But what God desires is to give us Christ and have Christ become everything to us. Brother Nee puts it very well in his writing,
Christ is our life. This is victory! This is holiness! The victorious life, the holy life, the perfect life, are all Christ. From beginning to end, everything is Christ. Outside of Christ, we have nothing. Christ must have the first place in all things. The victorious life God has given us is not a thing, such as patience or meekness, but the living Christ. Christ never mends our wrongs. What we lack is not patience but a living Christ. God will never tear a piece of cloth from Christ to mend our hole. To be short of patience is to be short of Christ, because God wants Christ to have the first place in all things. Therefore, to put the self to death is not holiness. Holiness is Christ. Christ must have the first place in all things. (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 11)
Giving Christ the first place in everything
How can we give Christ the first place in everything? Yesterday we saw some simple ways to love the Lord with our first love and give Him the first place, and there are so many more other ways! I am eternally grateful to the ministry of the age, the ministry of brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, which open up the Word of God, giving us a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, and betrothed us to Christ!
I just love the Lord more when I read the life studies and the ministry, and I am inspired, encouraged, and empowered to give Christ the first place even more! Here are some more ways – from the ministry – of giving Christ the first place in all things:
- Being governed by the direct and firsthand presence of the Lord (see Exo. 33:11; 13:21-22; 2 Cor. 2:10) is a very good way to give the Lord the first place. Everything we do should be in the index of the Lord’s eye, in personal contact with Him, and not according to “what we heard about the Lord” and “what others told us that the Bible says”. We need to have firsthand personal encounters with Him and be one with Him.
- Loving the church in the church-loving Christ is another way to love the Lord with our first love. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25) – we need to love what He loves, the church, His Body, the saints. We need to spend ourselves and even be utterly spent on the church (2 Cor. 12:15) out of our love for the Lord. We love the church in the church-loving Christ, not in or by ourselves (1 Cor. 16:24).
- Loving the ministry that builds up the church is an excellent way to recover the loss of our first love for the Lord. We give ourselves first to the Lord and then to the ones who have the ministry which builds up the church (2 Cor. 8:5), who have seen, heard, touched, and handled the word of life (1 John 1:3). These are the gifts ordained by God in the Body for the perfecting of the saints (see Eph. 4:11-12).
- Living and walking by the Spirit, serving by the Spirit, and ministering the Spirit are simple and daily ways to love the Lord with our first love. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25) and serve by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3), not having confidence in our flesh. This will constitute us as ministers of the new covenant – ministers of the Spirit, not of the letter (2 Cor. 3:6).
- To love the Lord with the first love we need to take Him as the fountain of living waters (see Jer. 2:13 and John 4:14). God desires to be the fountain, the source, of living waters, to dispense Himself into His people for their satisfaction and enjoyment! This produces the church as God’s counterpart, His increase, His enlargement, to be God’s fullness for His expression. Give Him the first place by taking Him as the fountain of living waters!
- Eating the tree of life is an excellent way to give Christ the first place in all things (Rev. 2:7). Christ is life – and He is available to us today as the tree of life, reaching out to us wherever we are for us to take Him in! The primary matter in the church life should be eating Christ as the tree of life, that is, enjoying Christ as our life supply continually!
- To love the Lord with the first love is to continually come to Him to contact the Lord, take Him, taste Him, and enjoy Him (see Isa. 57:20). In ourselves we “toss mire and mud” and our waters are not pure. But by coming to the Lord continually to enjoy Him, taste Him, and receive Him, we are being purified and living water shall flow out of our innermost being!
Lord Jesus, recover our first love for You. We want to cooperate with You today and give You the first place in all things. Lord, we want to live, walk, and serve by the Spirit, so that we may minister the Spirit! You are the source of the living waters – we don’t want to take any other as the source! Oh Lord, keep us eating You as the tree of life! We want to continually come to You to enjoy You, taste You, and receive You!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from, The Overcomers (Witness Lee, ch. 3), The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 11), and the outline for this week, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
- Hymns on this topic:
# What miracle! What mystery! / That God and man should blended be! / God became man to make man God.
# Jesus, Oh living One in me, / Open my eyes that I might see / All that You are to me.
# Thy dwelling-place, O Lord, I love; / It is Thy Church so blessed, / It is Thy joy and heart’s delight / And where Thy heart finds rest. - Picture source: nature wallpaper.
