Music:  I Rejoice in Your Love

          Again, you may have some vague idea what love means, but do you really, from God' perspective?  Let's find out.  The first commandment and the second both have to do with "love" so let's see what it is that God wants, no, commands, us to do:  God is love, the author of love, so wouldn't you suppose He might have some very specific ideas about what love is and how to love? 
                              "Ardent affection; a feeling of strong personal attachment induced by sympathetic understanding; the benevolence attributed to God as being like a father's affection for His children; also, men's adoration of God; strong liking, fondness; tender and passionate affection;  to take delight or pleasure in."
          Ardent:  Hot or burning, fiery, glowing, shining, warm, passionate, eager. 

          So, ardent is a synonym for the God's words - fervent and zealous - which He uses to describe the level of intensity He desires of our love relationship with Him:
          "I know thy works that you are neither hot nor cold:  I would that you were cold or hot.

          So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold not hot, I will spue (vomit) you out of my mouth." Jesus Christ, Revelation 3:15,16.

          Wow!  God would prefer our coldness to our lukewarm, halfhearted indiffernce!

          Note that this comes right before the verse where He describes what He knows we are "hot" about:  "Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."  verse 17
          
          In other words, those things which we are ardent, zealous, and fervent about, earthly things, when more important in our lives than Jesus and the Father are, are not a little thing to them
- this is very strong language!
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          But, Jesus uses even stronger words about loving: 

          "Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because you have left your first love."
Revelation 2:4
          As I said, and people around me can attest, I am a literal person.  I say what I mean and mean what I say, and I think God's Word does too.  For example, if Jesus had turned the water into grape juice, He would have said so!  He surely knew the word for it.  Besides, turning water into grape juice at an important wedding would not have been considered any big deal, might even have been considered bad taste, and certainly would not have been recognized as a miracle. (see what I mean about how my mind sorts things out!  :)

          So, when I read very strong, specific statements like the one above, it jars and jolts me because I know Jesus meant this with all His might.

          There are some words that I never want to hear from Jesus and those above are some of them, as well as "get away from me, I never knew you." 
          Again, the Word of God uses very precise words to portray a very serious matter - the intensity and depth of love and the loss of that.

          Do you remember your first love?  remember the ardent fervor?  the all-consiming nature of it?  the complete obsessive quality of it?

          Your every thought was on that person - you couldn't eat, you couldn't sleep, you couldn't concentrate, you were obsessed with thoughts of the beloved day and night!  Time not spent in their presence was agony; everything else in your life, no matter how important before, now paled in comparison.  Oh!  There is nothing like first love!!! 
Truly!

          That is exactly what Jesus is saying here.  He is displeased, disappointed, that the fiery, passionate ardor of our "first love" relationship with Him has diminished or disappeared altogether. 
          Put that in human terms and apply them to yourself, how would you feel?  Maybe that happened with your first earthly love, if so, how did it feel?  I know you have never forgotten it, so go back in time and really consider that, and you can personalize what Jesus is saying here - it hurts very deeply - just crushes you.  I believe it hurts God the Father and God the Son that deeply too when are love cools toward them!

          Think about the description of love God gives us in the first commandment:  We are to love Him with
ALL our heart, soul, mind and strength.  God said it so I believe if this is how He wants to be loved, then this is a perfect description of love, and is, in fact, the magnitude of His love for us and therefore, what He desires in return.

          I can think of all kinds of verses to corroborate this:  We are to hunger and thirst for Him, desire to spend time with Him with an all-consuming passion,
ache for the comfort of His love, long for the purity of His Truth, yearn for Him even as a jealous lover which is how He describes His love for us.

          As Jesus said in Luke chapter 7 "Her sins which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."

          Maybe that is why I love Jesus so much, so consumingly; He has forgiven so much in my life.  To take that lightly or slightly is unimaginable, for I remember where I was and the path I was on when He snatched me from death into life eternal!  If He has done the same for you, then the natural response of the heart is adoration, worship, and cherishing Him.

          We can see from His own Word that He detests and abhors lukewarm love, He would rather not hear from you at all than to get your lip-service love, your languishing, lethargic love.  He wants to be loved intensely, adored wholeheartedly, cherished above everything, with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength ardently and everlastingly. 
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To regard with fervent devotion and affection;
to idolize; to worship or honor as a diety or as divine; to feel or express reverent admiration for."
To hold dear, to treat with tenderness and
affection; hence to nurture with care; to harbor in the mind, cling to.
          This is so profound, I have to put it in:  I pray hearts will be opened to the power of this one statement:
The opposite of CHERISH is NEGLECT

Oh!  Don't miss that!!!

          If we truly love God, we have affection for Him, and we express that affection with some very distinct action verbs:  idolize, worship, express,
treat, nurture, and my favorite for a good picture verb:  CLING.

          All of these words require our action in one form or another, none of them are static, they require our thought and purpose and intent, our own choice to do them or not.  So you see, loving, adoring, and cherishing God are not mindless, inactive processes.  They require our action!






          How about worship?  Worship is reverence.  So, what does reverence mean?

          Reverence:  Honor or respect felt or manifested; profound respect mingled with love and awe.  Beautiful picture, huh?  And lest you think MINGLE is not an action verb, trying mingling anything without action!
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          Now we have a word picture:  If we aren't cherishing God the Father and God the Son, we are neglecting them;

          If we are lukewarm or indifferent on a daily basis, Jesus said that was really bad and He holds it against us because He is worthy of unending adoration, love, praise and worship!!!  He hates lukewarm love,
don't you???

          If we love God less today then the first day He saved us and poured out His Spirit into us, then we are in error and need to repent, to turn back to our first love for Him, fiery, shining, ardent, clinging,  and alive!  Love is an action!!! 
          
          And just as it is with our human relationships, we spend time, lots of it, with those we truly love, because it is our heart's delight to do so.  How can anyone honestly say they love Jesus if they never desire to spend time with Him, or spend so little time that a human relationship so neglected would wither and die???  Just as earthly relationships wither and die from neglect, so does our relationship with our creator and Blessed Savior:  Oh, how Jesus longs for the ardor and fire of our first love for Him!!!

          So, maybe you are thinking, no I don't have much time for God, but, I absolutely adore my wife/husband,  I honor my parents, and my children are the most precious things in life to me.  Surely these things cannot be wrong!  No, but . . .
Jesus said,
"He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me
He that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."

Matthew 10:37
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This page was last updated on: 4/5/03

Music:  I Rejoice in Your Love

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