Go Back to Your First Love!

Revelation 3:14-16. Sometimes Jesus sounds extremely harsh, He doesn't seem to care about peoples' feelings, He goes straight to the point. If He was invited to preach in our church today, the message would be the same, He wouldn't bargain or be afraid to speak the Truth "as is", no nice words, no emotional appealing, just the Truth, after all, He is the Truth! In the text above, Jesus is dealing with a church that grew proud of the riches and wealth they acquired, so much that they thought they didn't need anything else, instead of being filled with the Holy Spirit, as Paul commanded the believers, Ephesians 5:18, they became full of themselves. If you think about "vomit", you'll realize that most of the time when you vomited, the food that came out was partially digested, for one reason or another (infection, overeating, etc), your stomach couldn't fully complete the eating process. Now, if you apply this notion (halfway) to the text above, you'll see why Jesus was so UPSET (as your stomach when you vomit) with the Laodiceans, because His goal in discipleship is perfection or completeness: James 1:4. Unfortunately, we bought into that worldly mentality that "nobody is perfect", therefore we don't even bother seeking holiness, since perfection and completeness is impossible, we don't believe that God is able to perfect us and make us complete for His glory. How would Jesus deal with the "prosperity driven churches" today? The same way He dealt with the Laodicean church! So, is there a way to reverse the curse of lukewarmness? Yes there is! Jesus told the church of Ephesus how to do it: Revelation 2:4-5. It starts with repentance. Repentance (not remorse) is the first step to restoring the first love. This also applies to marriage. Unfortunately, along the way we became influenced by the culture, which says that once the flame (passion) is gone, the marriage is over. It happened because christian leaders failed to understand that love is not passion. Love produces emotions that may produce passion. Emotions do not produce love, they only produce passion! Paul gave us the perfect definition of love: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. So, what does it mean to be Hot? To me, hotness is: Unconditional obedience to Jesus Christ. Today, because the "cheap gospel" is all over, we think that everyone is Jesus' friend, since everybody is singing that song: "I am a friend of God, He calls me friend", in reality, just a few "believers" are Jesus’ friends: John 15:14. To be friends with Jesus Christ is necessary to be obedient to His words, to do whatever He tells us. I spent a couple weeks writing this post, at the end i struggled to find the title. This morning i was checking the "fakebook" and a friend of mine posted a link there, a preaching from a well known pastor from Brazil, his name is Caio Fabio, he says that when he fell was the time when God lifted him up, after being on top, he realized that everything he had done, was just a show, he had it all but lost his first love for Jesus Christ, that was the time when Christ brought him back and he says he despises people's recognition, applause, etc, or what i call, "the entertainment gospel". At the end he gave me the title: GO BACK TO YOUR FIRST LOVE! God has been so good to me, i'm speechless! I'm not saying i agree with everything this pastor preaches, absolutely not.