“Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love” (Eph. 6:24) ”I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:4). “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3).
Dear Lord Jesus, we need the tapestry of these three verses as much as we need air, bread, and water. For they call us to focus of the most important thing in all of life—to love you with everything we have and are. To love you like we did when first felt the wonders of your love, and the certainty of being forgiven, cleansed, desired, and yours.
Burdens lifted, light-headed, and right-hearted for the first ever… Jesus, those were the sweetest days of our lives. We were free, and felt peace and joy throughout our whole being. Making you a priority didn’t require effort; it was all we wanted to do.
Jesus, do it again… become more real, precious, and dear to us than ever before. Even as we needed first-grace to begin loving you, so we need fresh-grace to love you right now as only you deserve to be loved. Your love for us is the only constant in our lives—for you love us with everlasting, unwavering, unabated affection.
Your banner over us is love and your jealousy for us is current. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Whether we abandoned our first love through the exhaustion of pain, the weariness of fear, or the mirage of “success”—or if we simply drifted into an unguarded, under-nourished, over-busy heart, that’s not where we want to stay. It’s not how we want to end our lives. Come, Jesus, come. Restore our first love, by your never-ending love. So Very Amen.
