OUR FIRST LOVE by Chas. B. Reynolds

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 30, 1877

OUR FIRST LOVE.

By Chas. B. Reynolds

What was our first love? Let us go back to the record of those days so happy, so blessed—the brightest page of all our life history. How deep, how fervent, was our love for Jesus when first he spake peace and pardon to our troubled hearts. How lightly we held all things of earth. When we first loved the Saviour, how real, how earnest, how genuine was our love. There was not a duty in all the Bible which we did not deem it our most precious privilege to discharge. What cross could be too heavy then? If a call was made upon our time or means, we rejoiced to be awarded the privilege of at once advancing the cause of the Master, and proving our self-sacrificing love. We stood astonished, when some who claimed to love him evaded duty, or refused to supply needed means for the advancement of his cause.

In the days of our first love, we called no commandment grievous. No; God’s law was to us joyous; his Sabbath our delight. Then, we prayed, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” with all the fervor of our souls; and how we strove to be instrumental in answering our own prayers. We did not, in our first love, stop to weigh God’s requirements in the cold and selfish scales of worldly policy. Was it God’s command? That was enough. Love prompted us to glad obedience. But now—alas! how often we look for profit on the other side. How reluctantly, grudgingly, we yield obedience to God’s holy law of love. How eagerly we seize on the most flimsy pretexts to excuse ourselves, or even refuse to obey at all. Why is this? It is because we have lost our first love, suffered

ourselves to be beguiled, seduced from Jesus, our liege Lord, to the service of Satan and the world.

In the rapturous glow of our first love, no matter where or when the meeting, we were there. Worldlings mocked at us, said “they had no patience with us, we were exposing our health, and neglecting our business.” How indifferent we were to their worldly-wise expostulations. Rain, mud, storm, dark, heat, cold, distance—nothing could keep us from the assembly of God’s dear children. We would not, could not, stay away; with the saints of God we delighted to be.

Then, it was more than our meat and drink to do the Master’s will. Go where we would, in humility, patience, gentleness, and love, we urged all to obey the solemn truths of the third angel’s message, and entreated all to come and see the blessed Saviour we had found. Alas! our love is cool enough now. There is no longer that rapture, that burning zeal, that “ridiculous, fanatical enthusiasm,” as the worldling called it. Our song of joy is turned to harsh murmurs. “It is too much trouble;” “we have not time;” “we are too old”—“too young”—“too nervous;” “business won’t permit;” “health is too feeble;” “it isn’t reasonable to expect us to go so far.” God help! God pity us! It is the loss of our first love that makes us seek the comfort of our mortal bodies, at the risk of losing immortality, eternal life.

Has our Beloved changed—become less gracious, less tender, less pitiful, less kind? Ah, no! Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” Heb. 13:8. The change is in us. We have lost, betrayed, forsaken our first love.

Some are leaning upon what they have done. Oh! says one, “I used to do, now let others work; I have done my share.” God help us! The Lord in pitying mercy save us from living on have dones. God never called us to all the glorious light given in these last days, to the solemn truths of the third angel’s message, to lay our armor down. When we leave our first works it is because we have left our first love. If the tree cease to bear fruit, cut it down, why cumbereth it the earth? Not by spasmodic effort, but by “patient continuance in well doing,” we are to “seek for glory, and honor, and immortality; eternal life.” Rom. 2:7.

We sleep; our great enemy does not. As soon as the Israel of old escaped from Egyptian bondage, Pharaoh with all his host sought to recapture them—to drag them back to slavery; so it is with the Israel of God to-day, who are escaping from the bondage of sin. Satan and all his host seek to capture and destroy us. There are a thousand avenues to the human heart unknown, unsuspected by ourselves, but known to Satan. Every plan which his subtle wisdom can devise is brought to bear to seduce us from our Lord, to wean our hearts from our Beloved, and no snare proves more successful than dazzling our eyes with the glittering things of the world; hence the faithful warning, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” 1 John 2:15–17. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” James 4:4.

In view of the shortness of time, the perils of the last days now upon us, and the vast work to be done, oh that we may awake, and return to our first love! Let us be no longer dead or dying, but alive with zeal, looking and waiting for the coming of our Beloved,—waiting all ready ourselves, and so in a condition to help those around us.

We claim to be of that “peculiar people, zealous of good works,” to whom is entrusted the proclamation of the third angel’s message, God’s testing truth; his last warning to a sin-polluted world. Practical godliness, obedience to God’s whole law, a consecration manifested by continual self-sacrifice and pure devotion,—in short, loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, is essential to secure the glad plaudit, “Well and faithfully done,” to earn the gracious invitation from our Lord, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

In view of the perils that surround us, and the temptations that beset us, may the most intense desire of our souls be to return to our first love.

“Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee, E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me.”

Chas. B. Reynolds.