Intentional Walk - Remembering First Love

Anita Delene Manthe
Dec 28, 2016
2 min read

Many of us can agree that often we take our Christian walk for granted. We may be very discouraged with our environment or we are so caught up in worldly activities that we have forgotten our First Love. We become spiritually lazy and observe life, sin and its consequences from a more worldly than a Biblical perspective. This tends to occur when we have little Christian fellowship, or live in a weak Christian community. Truth is not absolute, sin is relative, and grace is stretched so far that accountability for thoughts, actions, and circumstances vanishes.

When this occurs God becomes someone whom we determine Him to be, and less than the God whom the Bible speaks of. Spiritual laziness exposes entitlement revealing the hidden person of the heart – you’re proud.

Entitled persons consider all the blessings of grace to be theirs without the necessary submission to the precepts of Scripture. They are self-determining and actualizing – they define Scripture and interpret it to defend their sinful position.

Do you do this? Where are you in your walk with the Lord? Do you compromise your thoughts eventually acting out on those thoughts? Or do you hold your thoughts captive to Christ – the Gospel? Do you understand the Gospel, and the price paid for you? Can you justify your laziness, your lack of discipline?

Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed (1 Samuel 2:3).
Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made (Isaiah 57:15-16).
We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it (Hebrews 2:1).
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience (2 Corinthians 10:5-6).
He gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).
I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent (Revelation 2:2-5).