The first epistle the Lord sent to the seven churches in Rev. 2-3 was to Ephesus, and He had only one thing against them, that they left their first love; therefore, they had to repent and do the first works – if not, He would come to them and remove their lampstand out of its […]
being transformed in life by God’s everlasting and unchanging love for us
In the Minor Prophets and in the whole Bible we see a universal principle – the principle of restoration. On the one hand, God wants to restore the fallen and corrupted universe back to Himself, and He wants to recover the earth including His people Israel. On the other hand, God wants to have a […]
loving the Lord by giving Him the first place in our work and in our speaking
To love the Lord with the first love is to give Christ the first place in everything, and this means that we need to give Christ the first place in our work and in our speaking. Even in working for the Lord, we may do something out of ourselves and with a hidden motive to […]
simple ways of loving the Lord with our first love by giving Him the first place
The church in Ephesus was a “good church” – it was an orderly and a formal church, but God had something against it, that it has left its first love toward the Lord (Rev. 2:4-5). We can be good Christians, church-going believers, and we may read the Bible regularly and claim we are Christians before […]
to love the Lord with the first love is to repent and do the first works
What does it mean to love the Lord with the first love? What does it mean to give the Lord the preeminence in all things? What does it mean to give the Lord the first place? When we first see the Lord and are captured by His beauty, we love Him with the first love. […]
overcoming the loss of the first love by giving the Lord the preeminence in all things
One very simple way to overcome the loss of the first love for the Lord is to give Christ the first place, the preeminence, in all things. The Bible begins with, “In the beginning, God …” (Gen. 1:1), and Colossians tells us that Christ must have the first place, the preeminence, in all things (Col. 1:18). In order for us to love the Lord with the first and best love, we need to consider the Lord Jesus as the first in everything. In God’s eyes and in God’s economy, Christ is the first – but what about in our personal universe, in our decisions, considerations, emotions, living, walking, speaking, attitude, and in all our being? [read more online]
degradation comes in when we lose our first love for the Lord, when we have an idol
When we were saved, when we believed into the Lord for the first time, we had eyes for the Lord Jesus only, and we didn’t see anything or anyone else but Him. Actually, when we were saved we entered into a love relationship with the Lord, into a life-union with Him, where we love Him […]