Lost in Love by @lori_kennedy

“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

Revelation 2:4 (ESV)

There it is.  You have lost your first love.  You don’t even realize that it has happened.  It was a slow fade; a change in priorities that occurred over time.  Your personal ambitions have overridden the original objective in which God called you.  As a matter of fact, you can justify what you are doing and consider it “right”.  What you are doing is not a sin; it’s not wrong.  There is nothing in the bible stating one way or the other about this.  All this is done in the name of love!  You are right, you are justified!  You are just lost in love.  The question is, are you lost in love with your first love, or have you  lost your first love?

You say I haven’t cheated on my spouse.  He or she is out of town for business, why should I not have time with my friends?  Yet, when your spouse comes home, your friends have become the priority. It becomes a struggle instead of a blessing to be around your spouse.  You don’t even realize that this has become the new norm for you.  The only one noticing is the spouse that you have emotionally left behind.  You blame each other, but never look inside and hold on tightly to the love that you said yes to so long ago.  Have you lost your love by being lost in love with the idea of love looking a certain way and then have that very same love not meet your expectations?

You say I love my children. I want them to have more than I ever had.  You take away limits and boundaries that are designed to allow them to grow up in confidence of their abilities through failure.  They become entitled and spoiled; thinking that the world owes them.  They don’t learn responsibility or how persevere.  Most likely, your original goal in having children was to raise them to become responsible adults.  But now, all in the name of love, have you lessened their hope for a successful future?  Did you get lost in the love of your children and forget your first love was to raise future responsible adults?  

You say God has called me to this ministry or church.  You spend great amounts of time doing this because you feel God has called you to it.  It’s not a sin to do ministry, right?  Before you realize it, the work of the ministry takes priority in your life.  You LOVE the work of the ministry, but do you LOVE the God of the ministry?  Are you sacrificing your family, for example, in the name of ministry?  Have you lost sight of your first love? 

You say, but God called me to love His people and to care for those less fortunate.  Yes, He did, but with the boundaries He set in place.  He did not call you to lose sight of Him in the process.  When you signed up for this marriage, these children, this ministry, what was your love and your priority then?  I am so stinking guilty of not putting my first love first in ALL of these examples from time to time.  I have realized that I must revisit these priorities over and over again.  In fact, we all have to re-visit our priorities and re-prioritize sometimes.  We also have to remember what our first love is so that we don’t get lost in love and lose sight of the love that God called us to in the process. 

What is your first love? 

Have you lost your first love?

What do you need to do to ensure you keep your first love first?

www.lorikennedy.com