Yet I hold this against you:
you have lost the love you had at first.
Most of us can remember a time when our love for the LORD was more inflamed. Perhaps there was some profound moment of encounter or conversion which made us feel more near to God than we had ever felt. It might have felt to us as though we were blind but given sight again.
"What do you want me to do for you?"
He replied, "Lord, please let me see."
Jesus told him, "Have sight; your faith has saved you."
We take it as a foregone conclusion that we can't keep such love with the same strength and vitality that we had during our peak experiences. And yet Jesus himself challenges us to love with the love we had at first.
Realize how far you have fallen.
Repent, and do the works you did at first.
How far have we fallen since those peak experiences? Jesus isn't asking us so much about how we feel, our subjectivity, or our experience of consolation. He is asking more about the sustained quality of our response. Was our first love marked with more zeal, greater love for God and for neighbor? And has it fizzled out since? This is the love he wants to see renewed.
Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name,
and you have not grown weary.
We have not grown weary. We still walk with Jesus. But our love is not the same as it was at first. Jesus believes that it can be. He is inviting us to experience that love. We seem to run dry when we rely on ourselves. But our love comes from his love in us. It is possible when, no longer we, but he himself lives within us.
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
The man born blind didn't return to his old life. Now that he could see he knew better than to go back to begging by the roadside. He did the one thing necessary to keep his love and thankfulness to Jesus fresh. He followed him.
He immediately received his sight
and followed him, giving glory to God.
When they saw this, all the people gave praise to God.
Probably we've turned back toward begging to one degree or another. Jesus wants us to remember our first love, to head out to follow him, giving glory to God as much as ever before.
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