Reclaiming that Loving Feeling

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to pick out newlyweds? They walk around completely oblivious to anything or anyone else around them. They are in their own little world, lost in each other—completely enamored with one another. Ah, love! The misanthropic among us will look at these newlywed couples and scoff that they are still in the “honeymoon” phase of the marriage—wait until things get hard, wait until the bills are piling up, the kids are in trouble and the dog is in the trashcan, just wait until “life” happens then we will see how they act. The sad truth is that many of our marriages and relationships move through a sort of downward spiral never recapturing the devotion and intensity of their earliest days. It’s not that we don’t love our significant other—it’s just that the “awe” is gone. We still do all of the same things, we may even do a little more than we ever did before, but the enthusiasm that was there at the beginning is missing.

Unfortunately this type of “love apathy” is not relegated to our relationships with other people—it also finds its way into our spiritual lives and our relationship with God. Jesus, in the book of Revelation, addresses just such a situation. In His “message” to the church in Ephesus Jesus begins by acknowledging all of the good works of the church, He then admonishes them for their failure to remain true to their “first love” (Rev. 2:1-7). Even though they were busy doing great things, they had lost the true focus of why they were doing those things. They had moved out of the “honeymoon” stage of their relationship with Jesus. The awe was gone. They had forgotten what it was really like to be in love.

Too many of us find ourselves, like the church in Ephesus, forsaking our first love. We have lost the intensity and enthusiasm for Christ that we once had. The works are still there, but the focus is not. Fortunately Jesus provides us with a formula for reclaiming that “loving feeling” (with apologies to the Righteous Brothers): Remember, Repent and Do. First we need to remember and reflect on the early days of our relationship with God, the “honeymoon” days, and compare that to our present situation—how does it match up? Next we are to humble ourselves and admit that the intimacy that we once had is no longer there. We need to seek Him like we did in those first days, with an all-consuming desire. Finally, we are to continue in our good works, not motivated by conscience or tradition, but by an intense, awe inspiring love, for a Savior who loves us with a never wavering love.