Revelation 2:4 But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love]. 5 Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent. AMPC
Have we any idea we have left our first love? I don’t think most of us do. I had no idea I was unfaithful and often leave God for something that seems okay, or even more attractive. There was no way I could have even seen myself unfaithful to Jesus if He hadn’t shown me.
Constantly asking for correction God has been faithful to show me myself. I didn’t realize that I often times betray Him because I didn’t look at Him carefully enough to realized He had feelings. I didn’t realize He had feelings like I do and that I was hurting Him when I left Him. I think most of us consider God as I once heard someone say, “It’s okay, God can handle it, He is God.”
What I have learned in my relationship with God is yes He can handle it, but it still hurts Him when we leave Him for someone or something else.
God is a real Person with real feelings.
We have to realize when we think of Him as God, but without feelings, it’s because without really knowing Him we create our own image of Him. If we can’t see Him, if we don’t have the revelation knowledge of who He is, we tend to depict our own meanings and our own imaginary relationship with Him.
You may not realize that if you don’t feel God’s feelings you could leave Him for a person, an event, a thing, or even for being peculiar. Peculiar? Yes, being thought of as peculiar because of Him, what someone might think of you if you take Jesus with you wherever you go.
Jesus said we have left our first love and unless we change our mind and repent, listen, and overcome, we won’t be eating off of the tree of life in paradise.
Revelation 2:7 He who is able to hear, let him listen to and give heed to what the Spirit says to the assemblies (churches). To him who overcomes (is victorious), I will grant to eat [of the fruit] of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. AMPC
We are so self-absorbed that we can’t see where we are at and that we have betrayed God. We don’t see that we have left Him to fit into the world and for the approval of others.
We long for approval from others and for acceptance from those who really are not even in the circle of God. Jesus said your sister, brother, and mother, is the one who does the will of the Father.
Why then do we get so messed up when we are rejected by those who are against Jesus to begin with? Why are we so afraid to be hated and rejected because of Jesus being ours? The One we should be proud to take everywhere we go, is Jesus. We should embrace our position as His and rejoice when men hate us because of Him!
Jesus said family would turn against family, and we can vividly see that happening. If you have ever loved, you have also been hurt. When it is your own family that rejects you, it’s most devastating. Devastating and heartbreaking, but we have to sort that out to be right with Jesus. We have to be committed to Jesus not a family member whatever their position is.
The very One though, the very One we leave, the very One we walk away from for those who will eventually turn their backs on us —is the One, Jesus who will never leave or forsake you if you stay true to Him.
John 15:18 If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would treat you with affection and would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world [no longer one with it], but I have chosen (selected) you out of the world, the world hates (detests) you. AMPC