We will read a few Scriptures.
In 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 3—the first part:
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then in Revelation 2, the first part of verse 2:
I know thy works, and thy toil and patience.
In verse 4:
But I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.
And in the first part of verse 5:
Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works.
Let us pray.
Lord, we really thank You this morning for refreshing us in Your love at Your table. Thank You that we can come and consider this together. We commit the words to You and pray that You would speak to us, that Your word would be received in our hearts. We want to hear You this morning, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.
A few months ago, we looked at the subject of first love. Mainly, we were considering: What is first love? What is the overall concept of first love?
Now, I think when I first read the Scriptures last time—especially Revelation 2:4—I think everybody got a little tense. It says, “I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love,” and everybody was ready, perhaps, for a harsh word. I do not know.
But actually, we are taking the approach very positively. We are looking at first love because first love is a very joyful thing. So, last time we looked at what first love is, and today we want to consider how to maintain first love.
This is a positive time. I want to encourage each other in this way of first love.
Last time, we mentioned that first love is when the love of Christ constrains us. The love of Christ constrains us because we have received His love. His love so constrains us that we love Him in return.
Another way to put it—and if it sounded confusing last time, perhaps you can just remember this one phrase—is found in 1 John 4:
We love, because He first loved us.
To simplify it, first love is when we love because He has already loved us first. This type of love hinges upon the fact that God has already loved us. We cannot have first love except that He has loved us. We receive His love, and the response is that love comes forth from us and loves Him in return.
First love happens when we are first saved. It is true: when you are first saved, you are in first love. If you are not in first love when you are first born again, perhaps you have not received His love. If you have not received His love, probably you are not born again.
When we are first saved, when we receive His love at salvation, we believe on Him and receive what He has done for us on the cross. There is a response inside, and it is first love. The response is the reaction to His love.
But first love is not limited to the beginning of our Christian walk. It is the way of the Christian life. The whole Christian life is to be walked in first love.
If it were limited to when you were first saved, then the rebuke in Revelation 2 to the Ephesian believers—who had been believers for some time—would not make sense. He said, “I have this against thee, that thou didst leave thy first love.” They had been believers for a while.
If first love were only at the beginning, then we might say, “That was back in the past. Now I am beyond that.” But first love is to be kept. It matures, and it is the constant way of the Christian life. The spiritual life is a first-love life: a constant reaction of receiving His love and loving Him in return.
First love is the chief love. It is really the quality of love. It simply means that His love in us is loving Him in return. That is the type of love we were considering last time.
Now that we know what first love is, how is it that believers can leave it, as the Ephesian believers did? God loves us so much. How can we forget His love? How can we fall from this?
We want to meditate on how to maintain first love. We see first love, we have first love, but we want to keep it.
When I was first a new believer, an elderly sister came up to me and said, “Now you have the joy, but just wait.” Under my breath, I said, “I never want to lose first love.” But I did not know how to keep it.
In the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation 2, the Lord says, “I know thy works, and thy toil and patience.” These are good things. We want to match that with 1 Thessalonians 1:3, where Paul remembers without ceasing their work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope.
The Thessalonian believers were brand-new believers, so we know they were in first love. When you are in first love, the works are works of faith. When you are in first love, the labor is labor of love. When you are in first love, endurance is unto hope—it is the patience of hope.
The Ephesian believers also had these three things—faith, love, and hope—when they were in first love. In Ephesians 1, those three are mentioned together. But somehow, in Revelation 2, these three inward realities are missing.
They still had outward works. They were still laboring and enduring. In one sense, we would say they were faithful ones. It was not as if they had become completely worldly, gone entirely off course, or wandered far from the Lord. But something inwardly was missing from their works, their labor, and their endurance.
So we want to use these three things to consider how to maintain first love. If we maintain first love, these three things must also be maintained. Someone in first love has faith, love, and hope. Therefore, to maintain first love, we need to maintain faith, love, and hope.
These three are found throughout the Scriptures. We see them in 1 Corinthians 13, which concludes:
But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
You can even divide 1 Corinthians 13 into three sections. The first three verses are related to faith: “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” These works of faith must be done in love.
Then verses 4 through 7 describe love: love is patient, love is kind, and so forth. The final section, verses 8 through 12, may be seen in relation to hope, because it speaks of the things to come:
For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face.
Faith, love, and hope are found all through the Scriptures. Even in the Psalms, if you look for them, you can find them. This is something solid with Christians: we have faith, we have love, and we have hope.
To maintain faith, let us consider the work of faith. There is a Scripture that uses this phrase in 1 Timothy 1:19:
Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having thrust from them made shipwreck concerning the faith.
Notice the word conscience. Maintaining faith has to do with the conscience. Earlier in the same chapter, in 1 Timothy 1:5, Paul says:
But the end of the charge is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned.
There are many Scriptures that connect faith and conscience. In Hebrews 10:19 and 22, we are told that we have boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus. We sing about this bold approach by the blood.
Then verse 22 says:
Let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
If we are to approach with full assurance of faith, our hearts must be sprinkled from an evil conscience. The conscience is an aspect of the heart. A wicked conscience means that the conscience is telling us there is some wickedness, some sin, resting upon it.
To approach boldly by faith into the presence of God requires that our conscience be cleansed. We are sprinkled in our hearts from an evil conscience. Therefore, to maintain faith requires keeping a good conscience.
The secret of maintaining faith is linked with our conscience. The spiritual exercise we need has to do with the conscience. We need to keep a clean conscience if we want to maintain faith.
If we do not keep a good conscience, faith leaks out. If we put away our conscience, we shipwreck our faith. It is like a large ship: the boards on the bottom of the ship are like the conscience. If a board is knocked out by a rock, water begins to leak in.
If you put away the conscience, water starts leaking in. Before you know it, you have shipwrecked your faith. When the conscience is clean, the ship is above water and sailing. There is boldness and full assurance of faith.
But if there is something in the conscience, even something small, a little water begins to come in. Then it starts to enlarge the hole. At first, you may not notice it. Perhaps you just put a bucket there. But after a while, you are sinking down. It is very subtle.
Most people do not walk with the Lord one moment and then, the next moment, simply decide, “I forget all of this. I am going right back into the ultimate sins that I used to do.” Usually, we just nudge the conscience over a little bit—one small thing—and gradually put it away until we shipwreck our faith.
In 1 Timothy 4, Paul speaks of those who apostatize from the faith and have their conscience seared as with a hot iron. Their conscience is cauterized. It has become numb, with no sensitivity.
Normally, the conscience is very sensitive. If we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, He will convict us even concerning little things. But if we go far enough, our conscience may no longer convict us even concerning very wicked things.
We have probably all had the experience of reasoning something out in our minds in order to convince our conscience: “Maybe this is not so bad. I do not know where the Scripture says that.” Or we see someone older or more mature doing something, and we set aside the conviction.
Before long, we are doing things that a month ago we would never have thought of doing. We are saying things in ways that make us ask, “What is going on here?” Our conscience has leaked out, our first love has dropped, and we have no assurance before the Lord.
This matters when we come to the meetings, especially when we come to break bread. We should come with a clean conscience. We see the blood in the cup, but if we have not received the cleansing of the precious blood upon our conscience, we have no boldness to remember the Lord and no full assurance of faith before Him.
Sometimes I come to sing and have such a joyful time. Other times, I come and just sink into my chair. The difference, really, is the conscience. When we do not want to be there, when we want to melt away, there is no assurance of faith, though we are singing the same songs.
We can try to sing enough songs to stir up our emotions and convince ourselves that everything is all right. But that is a false boldness. The pure boldness comes when our conscience is cleansed by the blood.
This is not something we need to work up. We simply confess our sins before the Lord. We repent, and He cleanses us with the precious blood. Faith is simple because the work has already been done on the cross. But we must maintain a good conscience.
It may help to consider the concept of the sins we are confessing. I do not want to list many sins. I told you this is a positive message, so I do not want everybody to feel, “I have ten more sins that I did not even know about.”
I was reading The Life That Wins by Brother Nee. In the first chapter, he lists eight different types of sins and really runs you to the ground. It is beautiful, because the second chapter goes on to show how to overcome. You have to come to the point where you realize the state you are in.
But I thought, “No, we want to be positive.” I think the Lord Himself, by His Holy Spirit, will show us whatever is going on with us. Yet, besides particular sins, we need a proper concept of sin.
If we have a very low concept of sin, it can trouble our conscience. We may not realize that some things we are doing are actually sins. We excuse them as merely being weak, saying, “I will try better next time,” and we do not treat them as sin.
If we treated them as sin, we would confess them, be cleansed by the blood, and our conscience would remain sensitive. But when we treat things that are sins to us as though they are not sins, we put away our conscience little by little.
James gives a high standard in James 4:17:
To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
If there is something I know I ought to do—if it is the way of the Christian life, if it is the way the Lord has been leading me—and I do not do that good, then to me it is sin.
When I was first saved, the amount I knew was limited. I knew only a few things that I ought to do. But as the Lord shows us more, to not do the good we know to do becomes sin to us. The Lord gives the provision and the grace, but we need to respond to what He has shown us.
When we are not doing the good we ought to do, we should treat it as sin. We should repent, be cleansed by the blood, go forward, and do the good we ought to do. It is very simple when we treat these things as sin.
I remember a brother who, when he was first saved, was dealing with repentance and sins. He had come from many outward and obvious sins in the world and was struggling to repent of them definitely. He told me, “You cannot even talk to me. You do not even sin.”
I told him, “You know about ten sins. I know about ten thousand right now, it feels like. I am probably being cleansed by the blood more often than you. I am probably having to repent more often than you.”
If we think only of sins that the world recognizes as sins, perhaps it may appear easier to live a sinless life. But that is not a sinless life. Our concept of sin needs to be raised.
In 1 John 3:4, we are told:
Sin is lawlessness.
This does not merely mean breaking the law, though that is sin as well. It speaks of a general principle: if there is lawlessness—any measure of lawlessness—it is sin. If there is no law upon us, it is sin.
I am not speaking about the law of the Old Testament. The Old Testament law gives a standard that exposes us as sinners and leads us to Christ. We realize, “I need a Savior.”
But this law is the law of the Spirit of life. The Old Testament law leads us to Christ; the New Testament law is Christ leading us. He is Lord. The one law we have as Christians is to obey the Lord. It is the law of the Spirit: we are led by the Lord.
If we cast off all law and say, “No rulership over me,” that is sin. It is the way of the antichrist, who is called the man of lawlessness. Either we have Christ as our Lord—the law of Christ and the law of the Spirit—or we go the way of lawlessness.
Sometimes, because we react against the Old Testament law, which was outward and exposed our failures, we can go too far. We touch some standard that convicts us, and we say, “I am not under law. I have grace.” But then we may drift into the attitude, “I might as well go on in sin so that grace may abound.”
That is not the way. To cast off all law, to have no lordship of Christ, sears the conscience. Jesus is Lord of us. When He is not Lord in some area, that is sin.
The law of Christ is an inward law. It means we are led by the Spirit. He rules us. We willingly are His bondservants, and we delight to do His will. This law is not merely exposing our need for a Savior; everything He commands, He gives grace to do.
As we have Him as Lord, we may discover many particular leadings: “Do this. Do not do this.” These are not merely outward regulations, but we know when the Spirit is leading. As Christians mature, there are more things we cannot do. Yet there are also more things we can do by His grace, because He increases the grace.
He hones us in and cuts away the things from ourselves, the things not under His lordship, so that we may know His direct path. Having the law of the Spirit is a beautiful thing.
Sometimes, in our experience, we are under grace, which is like the law of the Spirit. But as we leak out and fall a little from grace, we run into the outward law. It exposes us. Yet thank the Lord: the law leads us back to Christ. When we return to Christ, we have grace and are above the law.
Another principle is found in Romans 14:23:
Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
Paul is speaking about those who have weak faith or a weak conscience. Their conscience may be sensitive regarding something that is not technically sin. For example, one person may esteem one day above another and feel he cannot work on that day, while another regards all days alike and abides in the Sabbath rest of Christ.
Paul says not to cut off someone simply because he has a misunderstanding. But if someone does not have faith to do something, then whatever is not of faith is sin to him. The reason is that the conscience is sensitive. Even if it is weak or confused, we should not violate it.
Suppose someone has the idea that eating meat is wrong because it was not part of the original condition in Eden. That person may be mistaken, but if he eats meat while his conscience condemns him, then for him it is sin. He should leave it alone until he has light.
It is not good to remain weak in conscience or weak in faith. We should search the Scriptures and fellowship with believers so that we may become clear. But in the meantime, whatever is not of faith is sin.
The same principle helps new believers. Perhaps someone has come from a background of smoking. He may not yet understand all the Scriptures about the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, testimony before unbelievers, or finances consecrated to the Lord.
But when he continues the habit, he feels, “I am not sure. I do not have boldness of faith when I do this.” There is no full assurance of faith. In that case, he should not do it. He should wait until he understands and can act in faith.
Do not do anything when you do not have faith to do it.
A further defining verse is Romans 3:23:
For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.
We know that all have sinned, but we also know that sin is falling short of the glory of God. Here is God’s glory; any measure of falling short of it is sin.
We all need to realize that our concept of sin may be too low. We may think, “Today I did not have to repent of any sins, and hopefully for the rest of my life I will not have to.” But His glory is so great.
We are called to be conformed to the image of His Son. We are called unto His glory and to manifest His glory. This was God’s purpose with Adam: that he would receive the life and manifest God’s glory. Indeed, all creation was intended to manifest His glory.
Now we have fallen short of His glory, even in areas we do not yet know about.
What do we do if sin is any measure of falling short of His glory, and we do not even know all the glory of which we are falling short?
In 1 John 1, John gives us the illustration that God is light. This corresponds to God’s glory. This is who God is: He is light.
We walk in this light. As we walk, the light we have received is the light of life. Every bit of glory the Lord has revealed in us, every bit of conformity and transformation He has worked, becomes the way in which we are to walk.
The more we walk, the more His standard of glory is revealed. The more we see of His glory, the more light is shed. There is no darkness in God. He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
We may have darkness that we do not yet know about. But as He increases the light, the blood washes away the darkness, and our light is increased. He leads us gradually: receiving more light, being conformed to His image, and drawing nearer to manifesting the glory of God.
The Lord Jesus, when He walked on earth, did not fall short of the Father’s glory. John said:
And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.
He embodied glory.
Therefore, as we confess our sins, repent of what we know, and are cleansed by the blood, we also recognize that the more light we receive, the more we need the darkness cleansed. As light increases, we need to receive His life.
In 1 John 1:7, we read:
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
We experience this in fellowship with believers. As we share the life of Christ together, someone may share something, and suddenly the light increases in us. As it increases, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from darkness.
We receive His life and say, “That is the way. I do not want the other way. I want the way of light. I do not want the way of darkness.”
We need a broad view of sin so that we may keep a tender conscience.
We need to know what to do when we have sin. John the Baptist gives us a good illustration. He specialized in the subject of repentance. His message was, “Repent.” He came preparing the way of the Lord, and his baptism was a baptism of repentance.
In 1 John 1:9, we read:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
To confess our sins is not simply to say, “I am sorry. I did do a sin.” It is not merely acknowledging, “Yes, that probably was a sin.” To confess means that we stand on the Lord’s side. We say, “That is sin. I am on the Lord’s side, not on the side of that sin.” Then we repent; we turn from it.
When there is real confession, we can believe the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus has already died on the cross for us, and God is faithful and righteous. He will definitely cleanse us with the precious blood.
We do not need to beg for days for forgiveness. I used to do that because I did not understand the way of the blood. But Christ has already died for us. When we confess, turn to His side, and repent, cleansing is immediate because God is faithful and righteous. He cannot go against His own character.
John the Baptist helped people repent thoroughly. When people came to him and asked, “What then must we do?” he gave them specific instructions according to their condition.
That is a very good question for us when our conscience convicts us: “What should I do?” Repentance begins with the mind, with an attitude and a change of concept, but it must become an action. There must be fruit worthy of repentance.
John said, “Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.” There must be a direct response, an action that turns from the way we were going.
We may come wanting the pleasant feeling of being cleansed and being in the Lord’s presence, but genuine repentance means that we turn from the things we have been doing. By His grace, we turn.
I am not saying that if we have committed the same sin twenty times, we should give up and say it is impossible. If the Lord has shown us something is sin, He will give us grace to overcome. He never shows us something as sin without giving grace to meet it.
When people came to John the Baptist asking what they should do, he told those with two coats to share with one who had none. He told those with food to share with those who lacked food.
When tax collectors came, he told them not to exact more than what was appointed. In those days, tax collectors often added extra amounts for themselves. This was why tax collectors and sinners were commonly linked together: many made their living by taking too much from people.
When soldiers came and asked what they should do, he told them not to extort or bully people and to be content with their wages. They had power as soldiers under the Roman Empire, but repentance meant a definite change in how they treated others.
When we repent, confess our sins, and respond to our conscience in order to maintain faith, there is a definite “do.” There is something definite that we do.
The account of John the Baptist in Luke 3 can be taken as a picture of the conscience. This may sound strange, but John’s message was what the conscience preaches: “Repent.”
There are three ways people approach John the Baptist, and these are like three ways we approach our conscience. First, the Pharisees and Sadducees came to be baptized, but John said, “Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance.”
This is like coming to our conscience and wanting to repent in some shallow way, while not wanting to produce the fruit of repentance. It is a false way of coming. Vipers are sneaky; they try to come in while remaining the same. We often try to trick our conscience in this way.
The right way is represented by those who came and asked, “What should we do?” That is the right approach to the conscience.
Then there is Herod. John the Baptist told him plainly that it was not lawful for him to have his brother’s wife. What did Herod do? He locked John in prison.
The conscience does not hold back based on who we are or how spiritual we suppose ourselves to be. It tells us the truth. But we can put it away. Herod went so far that he not only put John away, but cut off his head. That is like a conscience being seared—so calloused that there is no sensitivity anymore.
Sometimes, when the conscience convicts us, we lock it away into prison. We say, “I do not think it is that bad.” Or when others speak in a way that makes us feel convicted, we say, “They are judging me,” and run away from them. Perhaps it is actually our conscience judging us.
We need to be sensitive to our conscience. The right approach is to ask, “What must I do?” When we approach the conscience in this way, we maintain our faith rather than shipwreck it.
To maintain faith, we keep a good conscience. We have a tender way of repenting and confessing our sins. Then our faith remains strong, and we have full assurance of faith.
With faith, the function of the spirit involved is conscience, and the practical experience is repentance. But with love, the function of the spirit is communion with the Lord.
To maintain love, we abide in His love. We commune with Him and constantly receive His love. This is the fellowship of love: we receive His love as we behold it.
To see His love is not enough; we must receive it. We fellowship with Him in love. We abide in His love, and His love abides in us.
In 1 John 4, John says that God is love. This is love: God loved the world and gave His only begotten Son, that we might live through Him. He gave His Son as the propitiation for our sins.
But love must be perfected in us. We receive His love and abide in it. As John 15 says, “Abide ye in My love.” As we abide in His love, we are constantly receiving it, and there is a constant response.
Sometimes we do not know how to abide in His love—to rest in His love and make our home in His love. At the breaking of bread, we have a set-apart time to behold His love, and it is much easier.
Even in the morning, we can set aside time to behold the Lord and receive His love. Scripture says:
I love them that love Me;
And those that seek Me diligently shall find Me.
This does not mean that God loves only those who love Him. Rather, if we love God, it must be because we first received His love. In the morning, we receive His love more easily because we set aside time to behold Him.
But in day-to-day life, how do we maintain this abiding in His love? We cannot always be consciously considering Him on the cross while we are walking, driving, speaking with someone, or carrying out daily tasks.
When love touches down to earth, it is grace. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. When the Son came to earth, He was full of grace.
When we receive His love, we receive His grace. Therefore, if throughout the day, in everything we do, we do it by His grace, then our labor is a labor of love.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:10:
By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not found vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.
This is labor by grace—the same reality as labor of love. Everything we do and every strength we exert is by His grace.
To maintain love, we receive His grace. We receive His love and abide in it. But the definite outward practice of this love—the place where it touches others—is loving the brethren.
We receive His love, and it needs to flow through us. If throughout the day everything is done by His grace, then everything is a labor of love. When we meet the brethren, we do the same thing.
We cannot love even the lovely ones by our own love. If we do, it is not the labor of love. When we meet people whom it is easy for us to love, we should still look to the Lord and say, “Let me love them with Your love,” so there is no mixture and no impurity.
As we love the brethren—those who seem unlovely as well as those who seem lovely—we look to the Lord and say, “Let me receive Your love for them.” Then it becomes much easier. It is not striving and struggling; it is simply receiving His love and allowing it to flow through us.
The inward function of the spirit is communion and abiding, but the practice is loving the brethren. Throughout the day, we need to abide and do everything by His grace. Yet if we want one definite test, it is this: if I am not loving the brethren, then my love is leaking out.
To love a brother or sister, the love of Christ must flow through us. If we can think of a brother we do not actually love with the love of Christ, we need to turn from that and receive the Lord’s love for him.
This is a litmus test. It exposes what is real. If there is someone toward whom we have a bad feeling, hatred, or only natural love, then we are not maintaining love.
So it is simple: we continue receiving His love and loving. We love Him. We do things by His grace. Everything we do by His grace is an expression of His love.
With hope, hope that is seen is not hope. If we see something, why do we hope for it? Hope concerns what is unseen.
This is found in Romans 8. I am not qualified to say everything about hope, but for our present purpose, let us simplify it: hope is what is to come. We hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His return.
We can broaden this to say that our hope is based upon His eternal will and His eternal purpose. But at least we all know that the Lord is coming, and our hope is completely in the Lord Jesus.
If He is not coming, there is no hope for us. But when He comes, everything is all right. If we can see Him face to face, everything is all right. This is our hope.
Our hope looks forward to His coming. It looks unto the unseen.
In 1 John 3:2-3, we read:
Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is.
And every one that hath this hope set on Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.
We are sons of God, but what we shall be has not yet been manifested. When He comes, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
We have His life in us now, and when He comes, we want to match that same life. He wants to say, “This is My bride, bone of My bones, flesh of My flesh—same life. I see Christ in her. I see Christ in this person.”
That is why the Lord is transforming us now. He is working in us. We are decreasing; He is increasing. His life is increasing.
Everyone who has this hope purifies himself. Everything that is not of His life is to be taken away. To be pure is to be single. Pure water is simply water; pure gold is simply gold. To purify ourselves is to remove everything that is not of the life of Christ.
When we have this hope, we can endure. Tribulations may come, but they are momentary and light afflictions compared to the surpassing weight of glory the Lord is working in us. His unseen coming is our hope.
If we merely have endurance, we ask, “Endurance unto what?” We may try to hold up under a major catastrophe in life, but when we realize that He is coming, His kingdom will be established, and everything will be fulfilled, our present difficulties become small in comparison.
This is the patience of hope. Then endurance becomes simple—by His grace.
Paul said that he did all things for the sake of the gospel. He did not run aimlessly. He was pursuing the crown, pressing toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Yesterday, I was walking in a park near my house. There were many little paths, and I was really walking aimlessly. I wanted to walk for exercise, pray, and hand out tracts, but my path was so aimless that I got lost.
When Catherine called and asked, “Are you lost?” I really was lost in the woods among all the paths. But on the way home, I had a hope set before me.
It was hot outside, at least hot for what I am used to. I was tired and had been walking miles. I would not have endured for no reason. I kept walking because something was set before me.
At my house was lovely Catherine. My house was air-conditioned, and there was water. If I had simply sat down on the sidewalk, it would not have been the same. We cast off endurance when we have no hope, but if we have hope, we have the patience of hope.
So I pressed on and made it home. I did not turn to the right or the left. I only wanted to go that way. Everything was lined up with the purpose.
How do we maintain this hope? We purify ourselves. Everything in our lives must line up with that hope. If something does not line up with the hope, then hope leaks out.
If we have half our things in the world and only half our things with the Lord, we begin to have hope in this world. Then we lose our hope. Therefore, maintaining hope has to do with consecration.
To maintain hope is to be fully consecrated—to maintain consecration. This is like Romans 12, where Paul speaks of presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice.
This involves more than our physical bodies. Our souls must choose to place our bodies on the altar. And we will not place our bodies on the altar unless, in our spirits, we have received such compassions from the Lord. It is spirit, soul, and body on the altar.
This includes our time, future, possessions, finances, speech—everything. Everything our bodies may do is included. If these hands belong to the Lord, they can only do what is unto that hope.
The way to test consecration is this: Does everything line up with the hope to come? If we want to know whether we are consecrated in an area, we can ask whether it is aligned with His purpose.
This includes our thought life. If our thoughts are wandering all the time, then we are not consecrated in that area. It includes our emotions. If I spend all my tears on myself, I do not have emotions reserved for the Lord to use. I cannot weep with those who weep or mourn with those who mourn because I have used them up on myself.
Our wills must decide His will. Consecration includes everything.
Romans 12:1-2 tells us that, instead of being conformed to this world, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. When we hand ourselves over to the Lord, our minds begin to think differently. They are renewed and begin to think as the Lord thinks.
As the mind is renewed, His eternal purpose becomes clearer. We begin to discern His good, acceptable, and perfect will. Consecration leads to a renewed mind, and a renewed mind affects our knowing of His will.
This includes both His great purpose, to which we are all aligned, and His specific desire in the little areas of our lives. Often, when we are confused about a decision, there may be something not consecrated.
Perhaps we are still worldly in some area and want our own way a little. Then our minds are thinking wrongly, and our thoughts corrupt our intuition. When we pray, we become confused and are unable to exercise our spirits to know His will.
Normally, when we are walking with the Lord, He makes His desire known. At least, if we know His one desire, everything is all right. We may not know every specific detail—whether to go to this city or that city—but if we are living unto His desire, He will lead us.
The main thing is to be unto that hope, unto His purpose, and unto the Lord’s coming.
When we consecrate ourselves, this is the way to maintain hope. The spiritual function or exercise related to hope is intuition, just as faith is related to conscience and love is related to communion.
Intuition is directly linked with consecration. But the practical question for maintaining hope is simple: “Am I consecrated? Does everything in my life line up with the Lord?”
When we maintain faith, love, and hope, our first love is maintained. These things keep us in a constant relationship with the Lord.
If we lose something in the matter of conscience, first love leaks out. If we lose something in consecration—if things once given to the Lord are no longer given—first love leaks out. We cannot be in first love and not be consecrated to the degree the Lord has shown us.
Likewise, if we are not loving the brethren, receiving His love, and doing things by His grace, first love leaks out.
But thank the Lord: all we need to do is maintain an attitude of repentance. As soon as we are convicted, we keep a tender conscience. As soon as we are convicted about anything, we confess our sin, repent right away, and the precious blood cleanses us.
As soon as we meet the brethren, we look to the Lord to love them. As soon as we do anything, we abide in His love. All through the day, there can be a wonderful life of abiding in His love.
Our whole life can be lined up with His purpose, even down to recreation. Consecration does not eliminate recreation. Recreation used unto His purpose can be useful.
We can keep our bodies in shape and use them for outreach. We can relax a little through recreation, perhaps becoming better able to serve the Lord. Everything is unto His purpose, even the minute things.
Whatever we do, whether in eating or drinking, we do it unto the glory of God.
These are some things we should maintain in our lives in order to maintain first love.
Before closing, there is something else we should ask. Once we know what first love is and how to maintain it, we should ask, “How do I return to first love if I have left it?”
It is really simple. In Revelation 2, the Lord says, “Remember, repent, and do.” He says:
Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works.
Those first works are the works of faith—the works of first love. We can center this around the word repent. If we do not repent, the Lord warns that He will remove the lampstand. So let us repent.
But repentance is unto something. Even returning to the Lord is a beautiful thing. He reveals to us from where we have fallen. First love is such a height: we are with the Lord, receiving His love, and responding in love.
If we have fallen from first love, we need to remember the Lord. The Lord gives us help when He says, “Remember therefore whence thou art fallen.” We remember the first works. We think about these things.
Perhaps we feel, “I cannot find the Lord. I am so lost.” But then we begin to think about the times we had such joy and first love with the Lord. As we remember, it brings us back. It brings us to see Him, and then we repent and respond.
Our repentance has a definite action. We see the works we once did, even the good works, and we do them again.
This is like the Shulamite in Song of Songs 5 and 6. She says, “I sought him, but I found him not.” When she goes out, the watchmen strike her. Then she says to the daughters of Jerusalem:
If ye find my beloved,
That ye tell him, that I am sick from love.
They ask her:
What is thy beloved more than another beloved?
And she begins to describe him:
My beloved is white and ruddy,
The chiefest among ten thousand.
She says, in effect, “This is my beloved. He is everything.”
When she begins to speak about her beloved, she remembers him. In the same way, when we think of the Lord Jesus Christ—when we see Him on the cross, remember how He died for us, how He bled for us, how His precious blood was poured forth, and how He loves us today by giving us His grace—we say, “This is my beloved.”
Then they ask, “Whither is thy beloved gone?” Suddenly, she knows: “My beloved is gone down into his garden.” She knows where he is. She only needed to remember her beloved.
Even if we are being beaten up by the saints, struggling, striving, hanging in, and doing all these things while missing our Beloved—missing that strong pull of His love—we can remember the Lord in this way.
Then we know where our Beloved is. We turn back to Him and go to the garden where He is.
Let us pray.
Lord, we just want to come to You and say that we are sick with love. We do not want to be away from You. We do not want to lack this first love, Lord. It is so glorious.
Lord, we want to repent from the many things that take us away from first love. We pray that each one of us, together, may walk in first love, maintain first love, and deepen in first love.
We commit ourselves to Your loving hands. In Jesus’ name, amen.