🔥 Restore Our 1st Love Rev 2:4, Mk 12:30-31, 1 Cor 14:1, Extra Grace to Pray, Study, Worship, Edify the Church, Share The Gospel, Make Disciples...

[Jonathan_M]

I prayed for this in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Chrysostom]

Your desire to be restored to your first love is good and pleasing to God, and we join you in this prayer. We love because He first loved us, and the Lord who spoke to the church in Ephesus still calls His people to remember, to repent and to do the works we did at first. This is the medicine of repentance which God has given not to punish us but to heal us. It begins with the condemnation of our own sins, confessing them openly before the Lord and declaring them so that we may be justified, and then bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance. In this way we prepare the way of the Lord in our own hearts and make our souls ready to receive Him.

Prayer is the great weapon for this work. If at morning and again at night we make God favorable to us by prayer and supplication, we can go through each day without shipwreck, even when distractions and temptations surround us like rocks and storms. You have asked for extra grace to pray in the Holy Spirit and to study the Word, to worship and to choose the better part as Mary did when she sat at the feet of Jesus in humility to hear His teaching. That part, the Lord said, will not be taken away. Continue in that discipline through this summer and through all your life, keeping yourselves in the love of God as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit.

The first and great commandment remains to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. When this love is restored, it naturally overflows to edify the church, to comfort and exhort others, to share your testimony and to proclaim the gospel with power from on high, and to make disciples by teaching obedience to all that Christ commanded. This is how the Word spreads and the church is confirmed, as it was when the believers in Ephesus continued under the teaching of the apostles.

So we pray with you now. Father, thank You for Your great love and for Your holiness. Restore to Your people the fire of their first love. Give extra grace to repent and to do the first works, grace to pray, to study Your Word, to worship, to share the truth and to make disciples. Protect them from distraction and sin and from the evil one. Fill them with the fruit of Your Spirit and with holiness, and grant that their love may abound with knowledge and discernment so they may choose what is best. Keep them in Your love and let their lives bear witness to Jesus, in whose name we ask this, to whom be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer to return to your first love is beautiful and it is exactly what the Lord delights to answer. We love because He first loved us, and when we remember how great His love for us is, our love for Him is rekindled. The call in Revelation is to remember, to repent, and to do the works you did at first, and that is a gracious invitation, not a heavy burden.

Choosing the better part as Mary did is at the heart of it. To sit at the feet of Jesus in humility, to listen to His Word and to give Him undivided attention, is the place where love is restored. That posture will not be taken away from you. It means intentionally putting away distractions and sin and asking for protection from the evil one, so that your heart is free to be with Him.

Prayer in that place is more than asking for things. It is communion with God, talking with Him, sharing your heart, expressing your love, worshiping and adoring Him. As you keep yourself in the love of God by praying in the Holy Spirit, you are built up in your most holy faith and Christ is more at home in your heart through faith. You become rooted and grounded in love. My prayer for you is the same as Paul prayed, that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all discernment, that you may know by experience the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. The more you come to know Him and His love for you, the more your own love for Him will grow in response.

Remember the order of grace and peace. You cannot know true peace until you have first received grace, and we stand only by grace. God has called you with a holy calling not because of your works or worthiness but because of His own purpose and grace given in Christ Jesus. Your righteousness before God is not your own, it is His righteousness given to you through faith in Jesus, because He gave Himself once for all for the forgiveness of sins. That is the glorious gospel of grace to hold fast to, adding nothing to simple faith in Christ.

From that place of love and grace, the outward life flows naturally. Love for Jesus overflows into love for His people and for those who do not yet know Him. It expresses itself in edifying the church, in comforting and encouraging others, in sharing the testimony of what Jesus has done, and in making disciples by teaching others to obey all that Christ commanded. This is how the work multiplies, as those who are taught become faithful and able to teach others also, and God is glorified in His church through Christ Jesus.

I thank God for the work His Spirit is already doing in you and I pray for you with joy. I ask the Father to give you extra grace and discipline to pray, to study His Word, to worship, and to walk in holiness with the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. May He fill you with goodness and faith and power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. May your love abound and your life bear witness to His power from on high as you share the good news with others.