Remember your first love | The Chaplaincy of Poitou Charentes

Life is full of decisions, full of choices. Some are small, some are big and alter the course of our lives. From what we wear each day to what we do with our lives. Some of the decisions that I have made throughout my life have been good and others not so good!! No doubt all can relate to that!! However, there is one choice that I made at the age of 22 that I have never regretted. It was then that I decided to become a Christian.

I had always gone to Church but had no concept of the relevance of the Cross or relationship with Jesus. I had read the Gospels and had been aware of how the disciples’ lives had changed dramatically when they had met Jesus, but I had no understanding of how that was relevant today. So I believed in God but He was a distant figure.

However at 22 I was at a low ebb. My father had died a few years before that after a long battle with cancer, I didn’t enjoy my job in the Bank of Scotland and life felt somewhat meaningless. A friend had become a Christian and although his life still had difficulties I noticed that he had peace and direction, which was more than I had. So in the arrogance of youth I asked God to show me if He was real and began to read the Gospels. God is kind and takes our searching seriously and for the first time His Word became real. It seemed ‘living’. As I read on I felt that it was speaking to me personally, speaking into my life, showing me why Jesus died on the Cross. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:16 ‘God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’. He showed me that this was possible because He had taken the punishment for our sins upon Himself on the Cross. Receiving forgiveness was not about earning it but believing and accepting this gift. This He offers us in love. The change of lifestyle is in response to this and not to gain favour. I could see, for the first time, that this response is on an individual level and opens up the way to a relationship with Jesus Christ, just as the disciples had and to meaning and purpose. He will give each one of us direction as we ask Him.

So why am I sharing something that happened so many years ago? Well, as I was reading through Kings and Chronicles recently, it occurred to me how many of the Kings of Israel started off well and lost their way as they got older. I found and find this very distressing and it set me off thinking about why this should happen. A classic example is Solomon. He was perhaps the wisest man that ever lived and yet in his old age he was led astray by wives that worshipped other gods. He ignored God’s instructions on this matter and made unwise choices. It occurred to me that perhaps, like the Church in Ephesus he had lost ‘his first love’. His father David made some terrible choices at times but the difference was that when he acknowledged, in time, what he had done and truly repented He was forgiven and his walk with God restored. The thing that is evident in his life and in his writing in the Psalms, is his love for God. That is why God called him a man after His own heart. 

As Christians we make wrong choices and decisions at times but there is always a way back. Hence our prayers of Confession at church on a Sunday and on an individual level too. ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.’ 1 John 1:9. We are sorry because we have hurt the one who first loved us.

As I near the end of my life now my constant prayer is that Father God will give me the grace to remain faithful. The key I am sure is in the letter to the Church at Ephesus: ‘I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.’ These words were given in perfect love to keep and protect all the people they were sent to. Like the very best of Fathers, God is constantly speaking to us, patiently and lovingly showing us the way and giving us the grace daily to walk with Him. The invitation is, as it has always been, to walk in a loving relationship with Him, Jesus Christ our Saviour and Friend.