Seeing God himself as our first love
I’ve been thinking about my earliest days in the faith. I found myself to have been zealous yet lacking wisdom. I have not yet attained unto being a “wise man” but feel assured that I now know more of the word of God… but I wonder, I wander deep within myself questioning whether or not I know the God of the word any better.
It truly bothers me. I used to read of the drowning masses who were swept away by waves of the deceitfulness of their lusts, and the multitudes plagued by demons and disease whom the Lord healed. I saw that those same sin damned souls had been rescued, but I also saw the fact that many were not and they birthed many more like themselves and that they had grown, through time, to fill and rule the earth in all manner of injustice, perverseness of heart and mind, and the like.
My heart burned with concern. I was compelled by the love of Christ. I read, “When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them” (Luke 4:40). He healed them- all of them. Yahweh is “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Pt 3:9).
That was His heart and I came to know that this same Jesus who not only healed them and me was willing to do the same for the lost souls in the modern world. In the Bible lepers wail, crying out to him: “if you are willing I can be healed!” The Master would reply, “I AM WILLING. BE HEALED”(Mark 1:40,41).
He lived in me and He was willing to heal them. I knew I had for sin the double cure dwelling within me. It was this wondrously, glorious, King of kings and Lord of lords that my soul adored; Christ in me- the hope of glory! He was the solution!!! I didn’t expect to walk in the power and anointing to perform supernatural miracles of healing of cancer, or blind eyes…I expected more.
Death of this body is inevitable but the judgment for the deeds done while in this body is not. I expected God to work on the bigger issues- on souls. I knew there was a greater cancer steadily devouring them and a deeper darkness that veils the minds of all those who do not believe the gospel. That cancer is sin and that veil is woven by the hands of satan (James 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:4).
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I had a reverence for the God who ruled over all the universe. I read the words, “Go ye therefore into all the world and preach the gospel unto every creature” (Mark. 16:15) and so I would go walking the streets and speaking to those I’d never met. I would share the gospel of Christ seemingly everywhere I went as highest priority. I cared for souls. I had compassion for those who hated God, because I once lived like them. I only had a little light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ but as long as I looked into the raging flames of His eyes I was consumed with zeal and my mind was reminded of the judgment day on which all flesh will be held accountable for every idle word they’ve uttered (Matt. 12:36,37) and this breathed the breath of life into my faith. It forced me to back up all the things I simply talked about with actions. I was severely in love. It was the command of God that launched me forth. I read, “Little children, let’s not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18) and I believed it. If Christ said “give to those who ask” and someone asked, I gave. If He said preach, I preached. I delighted in His will.
Now,I plan on learning some Hebrew… but what is all the Hebrew in the world, or all the blood of bulls and goats, or endless pages of hymns and poems written to the Lord, or the giving of all my goods to the poor, or the surrender of this body to be burned if I don’t learn to love in selflessness? It is nothing. There is no greater love for God than to obey Him: “If you love me, keep my commandments”(John 14:15). I only had a little light but I walked in it and it was so radiant that it blinded me from the filth of the world. I had no television, no computer… When I came home I had the Master of the Universe in my living room.
Most houses are dead in the living room as each member of the family has compartmentalized their lives, setting up social networking walls of partition. Mine on the other hand was ablaze with holy glory every night in praise. I only had a little light but I knew Jesus said, “whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” I didn’t want to perish. I wanted to walk in the light of life. I had to have a vision of God or I’d die. He was a dreadful God to be feared, yet tender and compassionate- willing to reason and forgive and to lead me into the paths of righteousness for His names sake.
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I wanted more of that light and He continued to give it. It is true with the Lord: “The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter–like the light of seven days in one! So it will be when the LORD begins to heal his people and cure the wounds he gave them” (Isaiah 30:26). All of creation was new before me. Everyday was blessed beyond the day before, waxing brighter and brighter. “The entrance of His word brings light”(Psalm119:130). “He sent forth His word and healed me” (Psalm 107:20). His word is light and it had broken all the chains of darkness that bound me.
Surely, I know more than I did then but “knowledge puffs up. Love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). What has happened? I must have spent hundreds of hours on myspace and facebook since then and have seen myself compromise on many fronts of personal holiness that I withstood the devil steadfast in Lord at back then. It seems like I gave more, I prayed more, I sang more, I witnessed more…. What happened to me, to this guy wanting to learn hebrew, studying the “deeper things?” A few days ago I read the words of Christ: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love. So remember where you have fallen from. Repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place- unless you repent” (Rev. 2:4,5).
So much for the little light I had. So much for the hebrew. So much for the “deeper things,” like the hebrew roots. Jesus is looking for one thing: works. I pray now it would just reverberate within myself like a bell whacked with a hammer to wake me up, and you too, “I KNOW YOUR WORKS. I KNOW YOUR WORKS. I KNOW YOUR WORKS. REPENT AND DO THE FIRST WORKS, OR ELSE….
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This is a verse that I considered to be a great impetus: “The master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23). God help me! What about you? Do you know what the end of the matter is? It is to “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man”(Ecc. 12:13). Of course you do. You are a well studied Christian, right? But what about that command above. “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.” Will you lay down your remote? Will you lay down your book on Hebrew? Will you lay your own life down? After all, “Shma Israel… You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength and you are to love your neighbor as yourself”(Deut. 6:4,5). Remember: “No one has greater love than the person who lays down their life for a friend” (John 15:13). “But all those sinners walking down the street aren’t my friends” we might say- but I can hear the heartbeat of the good samaritan and it shames my selfish soul.
“The master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:23).