Simple Pleasures… and First Love

The time I love best in the whole world is the first 2 hours of the day that I spend alone with The Lord. I have to set my alarm and sometimes it’s a struggle to get up early but before I sound like one of the self righteous twits that make you feel guilty because you’re not doing it, perhaps perspective will help. In Revelation 2:4, Jesus claims the Ephesian (and future) church has left its first love.  However, reading it in its context is somewhat sobering.

         Verse 2:‘I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; 3 and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. 4 ‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.5 ‘Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.

The previous verses say that they work hard for the Gospel, cannot tolerate evil, call out the deceivers and have done one of the most important calls from The Lord – they have persevered.

The following verses however say that if they do not remember from whence they have fallen, repent and go back to doing their first good deeds – which no doubt meant spending time in the Word and prayer – getting to know Him because they loved Him – He would remove the ‘church’ or the light from them.

I will write more later on how you can test whether you you love Him – but we do know that He says in John 14:15, “if you love Me, you will keep (obey) My commands” – and they are to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ as stated in Matthew 22:37-40.

So, the truth is that spending time alone with Him in the morning is a joy and a delight to me. I start by playing my piano (with headphones on so nobody else hears the racket!) before coming to His Word. The music is my simple pleasure – my time with Him is life itself.