Rediscovering First Love: A Journey Back to Basics in Faith and Service
We need to come back to the fundamentals—the close-in stuff. We need to look at the way we live and the way we love. I wonder if most of our prophetic mandates and assignments have more to do with pursuing distraction than we want to admit. Our desire to do something important, to be part of something bigger, is a log that blinds.
We’re pursuing the dream and drowning in our present reality. Something has to give! It’s time to come back to the basics, to realign with the things we did at the start—to go back again to our first love.
Jesus calls us first and foremost to Himself. He calls us into the daily discipline of coming in close to talk and share our lives, and to lean in even closer to listen to what is on His heart. He calls us to give extravagantly. He calls us to trust. To hope. He leads us to forgive even the gravest of offenses, always leading us out of our pain and into new life. He never avoids the hard stuff but gets down into our dirt. He looks at us full on, and He loves us. Filthy and desperate, He loves us.
We’ve got to come back to the beginning, remembering the sweetness of when it was all about Him. When it was all about hearing the sound of His voice and responding. Remember those days? I do. And I’m running back.
All the stuff, all those vain pursuits, have left me battered and bruised. All that ambition has left me desolate. What a waste.
I was watching TikTok or YouTube shorts, and Tucker Carlson came up. Whatever your politics, I thought what he shared was right on. He talked about being a hated man in America and the required insulation to be unbothered. He shared about remaining focused on those you love and those who love you. Keeping all others outside that circle of your concern. He talked about the motives of many going into or in politics being less about the desire to wield power and mostly about the desire to be loved and the dangers of that as a pursuit.
While I don’t have political aspirations, I think what he shared relates to many who pursue ministry or service. It relates to me. If you’re honest, you may just find it relates to you too.
We get hurt because we wanted something back from our service that we didn’t get. We get crushed because our ministry wasn’t received. I know you can relate.
The insulation we require is close up. We won’t serve those we don’t know better than those we do. We can’t love those far off more than those close in. Kingdom operates at the pace of family. And if not family in the biological sense, surely in the kingdom sense of the word.
I want something I haven’t quite experienced yet. And maybe it doesn’t exist this side of eternity. Or maybe all we can hope for are moments, snapshots of what is waiting for us in fullness on the other side. I mean maybe that’s all we can hope for, the best there is. But I want to keep at it. I want to keep knocking and searching and looking. I want the real. And I want to be more real, more transparent. I want to be a conduit of those moments.
I want the sweetness of first love again, but this time with the wisdom that comes from the journey of pursuit. I remember burning hot for God. And on days when I feel like all I bring to the table is an ember, just a flicker, I am reminded that Jesus isn’t put off by my weakness.
Isaiah 43:3 “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.”
He loves me. And He loves you. Maybe the real discipline required to go the distance is the discipline of remembering the truth. He loves me, and He loves you.
