I remember the first time I saw Jan walking across the campus at what was then known as Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon. I remember the first time I heard her voice in a chance meeting. I remember the first time I caught her fragrance and our first date when I asked her to leave the chow hall on campus to walk a mile with me to the Original Taco House on 82nd street. I remember me trying to impress at dinner in hopes of a second date. I remember the first time I held her hand and our first kiss in the parking lot of the Eagle Creek trailhead on the Columbia River. Just this week, after almost 50 years of marriage, we are still discovering firsts. Firsts are an indicator that love is alive.

Many theologians call Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians the Alps of the New Testament. It is filled with so many profound truths about the Lord and our life of faith. But in all the church in Ephesus had going for them, the Lord had a complaint.  “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first. Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches” (Revelations 2:4-5). No matter what status of faith we achieve or what history of good works we accumulate, losing our first love carries serious consequences.

A marriage needs a “first love” passion through all its years or it will slip into something less than its original design and become a passionless, convenient relationship. The problem with the church in Ephesus will be our problem if we move away from the joy, thrill, and passion of our first love for Jesus. If we ever find ourselves in that state, we need to find out why and “Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.”

As I survey the church in the United States the only way forward for us during this time of division and increasing turmoil, is to return to our first love of Jesus. Placing our hope in a career change, buying another toy, or having our preferred candidate win the next election, are all nothing more than carrots of disappointment dangled in front of our faces. They will eventually lead us away from our first love and leave us with a counterfeit.

Without a return to our first love, we will abandon the mandate of the Great Commission and the passion required to empower that effort. We will substitute that calling with a lesser calling that sounds noble, but in the end, it will be as sad as a marriage without the passion of an ongoing experience of the original first love. Be careful. Love is at stake.