You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.” – Revelation 2:3-5a NIV

God is not far from us; it is the hearts of His people that are far from Him. Often our hearts drift from the Lord. This happens to all of us without exception because, as humans, we are frail in many ways, especially in love and devotion. A heart far from the Lord may still be effective in spiritual activities, but it has lost its first love. A church in the Book of Revelation called THE CHURCH IN EPHESUS was warned by the Lord Jesus Christ to return to their first love despite their many spiritual activities (Revelation 2:1-7). It is possible to have spiritual activities but be bereaved of genuine love for God, but it is impossible to have genuine love for God and not have commensurate spiritual activities. God is not against spiritual activities, but He is against spiritual activities not born from genuine love for Him.

In Luke 10:38-42, we see an account of two women. Martha was full of activities but she didn’t realise that activities must come from a deep knowledge of God, however the Lord Jesus Christ commended Mary’s devotion to knowing Him; the Lord calls it the ONE THING that cannot be taken away from her. Living a life of devotion to knowing God’s heart will produce in us a depth of the knowledge of God that no scheme of men, device of Satan, and tough situations can take from us.

The Psalmist professed that the one thing he desires is to seek the Lord and know Him intimately (Psalms 27:4). Every true spirituality must spring forth from the place of intimacy with the Lord. All godliness and piety are offsprings of devotion to seeking the Lord. Believers are a people of ONE THING – seeking the Lord night and day.

Scripture teaches that God has loved us in this way: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3 NLT). As believers, we have come to recognize the perfect and unending love that Christ has for us. Yet, despite this profound truth, we can find ourselves in the exact same position as Martha or that of the church of Ephesus. It’s important to note that Jesus’ teaching to this church isn’t that all their good work is pointless or should be completely disregarded. Jesus acknowledges their faithfulness to Him. But His correction comes by addressing their heart’s intention. This church had either lost love in their hearts for God or for others. But both of these are crucial as believers. The hard reality is, we can do things for God but with little or no love for Him in the process. Scripture teaches us to be quite different from this: to love the Lord in word and deed. To grow in our knowledge and wisdom of Him, yet to remain humbly dependent on His wisdom and grace for us. This is the not-so-secret truth of our faith: to behold Him, and to continue to. To see Christ, and to continue to want to. To become His through surrender, and to continually surrender our lives upon the altar of His all-consuming love.

For love is not what we do after we get the other things done, if we have any energy left over. Love is what we do, period. It is not how we work; it is our work. If we don’t love, we aren’t doing what we were created and saved to do.