Revelation 2:4-5 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
Backslider. It’s a term we use for the lowest of the lowest of states that a Christian can find himself to be in. When we use this term we use it for those who used to be active, used to be “on fire” for the Lord, used to walk in righteousness; but they turned their back on the Lord, stopped attending Sunday services, no prayer, no bible reading – just enjoying the life of the world once again. This is the common understanding we have of a “backslider”.
And it’s a right description of what a backslider is. I was a “backslider” once, and what I described is actually who I was at one point. But the Lord graciously brought me back to Him. So I agree that this is a valid definition. But it’s not the only definition.
We are so quick to judge Christians to be backsliders, when we don’t realize that we could be in a backslidden state ourselves! A web dictionary defines a backslider as “Someone who lapses into previous undesirable patterns of behavior”. The key to understanding backsliding is in understanding “undesirable patterns of behavior”. When we go through a day without prayer, or meditating on God’s Word, isn’t that backsliding? When we allow our fleshly, or worldly ways, to rule our behavior, and we don’t immediately deal with it, isn’t that backsliding? When we go to a Worship service with our hearts and minds focused on other things aside from the very reason we are in the service – to worship and listen to the Lord – isn’t that backsliding?
Take a look at what the Lord’s message to the church in Ephesus was in the book of Revelation: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love”. After commending them for their standing for truth, and for persevering for His name, He found one thing that He held against them – they had lost their first love.
Here is backsliding in it’s most subtle state. This is a backslidden state that many Christians are in. And it’s difficult to detect because those who have lost their first love have perfect attendance in church services, they serve the Lord in ministry, they even walk in righteousness. But they have lost their first love.
The moment someone, or something, steals the total devotion and love that we are to be showing the Lord, He loses His “first love” position in our hearts. When anyone, or anything, hinders us from enjoying our prayer time, our meditation on His Word, serving Him, following Him anywhere He sends us, and our enjoying Him in righteousness – they take His place as our first love. It could be a person we love, a friendship, our work, our career, our business – even our ministry. Have they now become our first love?God will never settle for being even our second love. There is no other relationship He desires than having Him as our first love.
5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.
If we have lost God as our first love we are backsliders. God is not pleased. He holds it against us. But He doesn’t want us to remain that way. We are to remember the height from which we have fallen. Many who lose God as their first love look at it as a trivial matter, like tripping on a stone. But for God it is a FALL. We didn’t just trip, we fell off a cliff! And He wants us to remember the height from which we have fallen, to look up in pain from the fall, and see how far our God is. But He wants us back, and He wants to be our first love again.
So, we are to repent and do the things we did at first. The order is important. We can’t just go back to doing what we used to do. We need first to repent – acknowledge the sin of losing Him as our first love, and turning away from it. Then we go back to doing what we used to do.
Have we backslid today? Have we lost our first love? God is waiting, and He calls – “climb back up”.
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