by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love”<\/em> (Revelation 2:4).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The first love was the focused and enthusiastic love they had at the early stages of their conversion. As John in his epistle stated, “We love Him because He first loved us<\/em>” (I John 4:19) and it was such a rich and attractive love that drew us to Him. As the old hymn said, “O twas wonderful, wonderful love, that brought Him from heaven above. As a ransom to die on the tree, to save a poor sinner like me.”<\/p>\n
Is the passion and fervor what it was before? The Lord knows when we are losing our enthusiasm but holding on to externals. Has the fire begun to die within? We can’t hide the truth of this from Jesus who walks among us and knows us thoroughly!<\/p>\n
Jesus warned that in the days leading up to the fall of Jerusalem “the love of many would grow cold<\/em>” (Matthew 24:13). Jesus also talked about in normal life we may not have prepared the ground of our faith sufficiently so that the cares of the world grow up as thorns around us squeezing out our spiritual vitality (Matthew 13:22), refocusing our lives on less meaningful things until the joy and commitment to Jesus begins to take a back seat, and unfortunately becomes empty ritual if anything at all.<\/p>\n
The Spirit is speaking to us. Are you listening to what He is saying? Have you moved away from Jesus being your first love? What will you do about it?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Terry Wane Benton “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelation 2:4). The first love was the focused and enthusiastic love they had at the early stages of their conversion. As John in his epistle stated, “We love Him because He first loved us” (I John 4:19) and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[65,172,635],"class_list":["post-65052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-love","tag-passion","tag-zeal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":83421,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/but-the-greatest-of-these-is-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":65052,"position":0},"title":"But the Greatest of These Is Love","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 20, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Aaron Erhardt via Biblical Insight, Vol. 14, No. 9, September 2014 Napoleon once declared, \"Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself have founded empires, but upon what do these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love: and to this very day millions would die\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24418,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-the-idea-that-there-is-no-fear-in-love-applies-to-all-loving-relationships\/","url_meta":{"origin":65052,"position":1},"title":"Does the idea that there is no fear in love applies to all loving relationships?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I want to learn what the verse I John 4:18 is all about. Does this speak of our love for God or for our brothers and sisters? Or can this also apply to a relationship between lovers? My friend quoted this verse to me saying that when you are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89505,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/commandment-keeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":65052,"position":2},"title":"Commandment Keeping","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kevin Cauley There are those in the religious world today who ridicule the idea of keeping commandments. They claim that keeping God's commandments has nothing to do with our salvation today. If someone objects and says that we must keep God's commandments to be saved, the charge of legalism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46544,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/gods-amazing-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":65052,"position":3},"title":"God’s Amazing Love","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Dennis Stackhouse God's love for mankind; what does that mean to you?\u00a0 How has God's love for you affected the choices you have made and the way you have chosen to live your life?\u00a0 Many will respond in obedient faithfulness as they seek to please God in all they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92659,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-great-a-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":65052,"position":4},"title":"How Great a Love!","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Gibson One of life's greatest blessings is knowing someone loves us, despite our faults and failures. 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We don't want to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18759,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-thinking-about-a-girl-constantly-be-idolatry\/","url_meta":{"origin":65052,"position":5},"title":"Can thinking about a girl constantly be idolatry?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Could you help me understand what idolatry is according to the Bible?\u00a0 I know it seems like a simple concept, but I have heard so much conflicting information on the subject.\u00a0 For example, I heard one preacher complaining that being devoted to American Idol constituted idolatry (how about that?).\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}