In our third day on seeking renewal from our good and loving God,

today we're going to look at what it means to have a renewal of our first love.

What we love and who we love first makes all the difference in how we spend our days and how we spend our

moments. And unless God is our first love, the one we're giving all of our hearts to, life will

always feel out of balance and lacking the fullness of fulfillment. May God guide us to a deeper love of him today

as we open our hearts and hands to meet with him.

Welcome to the First 15 podcast. Our scripture for today comes from Revelations 2, verse 4.

Scripture says, but I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

Out of God's great desire to be truly loved by His people, we have been given the gift of free will to choose who and what we will give our affections to.

God, knowing full well that not all of us would choose to love him, still created

us out of his longing for close relationship with us. You see, so great is our Heavenly Father's

desire for relationship with us that he suffers as he watches his children choose to love people,

ideas, and possessions that will never fully love us in return. So great is his love for us,

that he responds to our sin of idolatry with grace and mercy every single time.

And so vast is His affection for us that he sent his only son

so that we might be restored to close relationship with our Heavenly Father once again.

But still, we choose to love things other than God. Still, we seek

out satisfaction and love from creation rather than the Creator. Still, we choose to place our hope

and affections in the world instead of in God.

If we are to live the life God intends for us, the only fulfilling life possible, we need

a renewal of our first love.

Thousands of years ago, the church in Ephesus was much like we are today.

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