OPEN HEAVENS 2023 DEVOTIONAL DATE: SAT, FEB 04, 2023
TOPIC: REMEMBER YOUR FIRST LOVE
MEMORISE: “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.” – (Revelation 2:4)
READ: Revelation 2:4-5 (KJV)
MESSAGE:
Today, I want you to flash your mind back to when you first got born again. I want you to remember how excited you were about Jesus Christ then. Remember your disposition whenever it was time to go to Church. Remember how often you read your Bible and prayed. Remember how desperately you wanted to get closer to God. Now look at your life today. Are you as passionate about God as you were in those days? Beloved, remember your first love.
I will never forget the testimony of a sister who didn’t have enough money to come to the Holy Ghost Service and decided to watch it on television only to discover she had no electricity and no fuel to power her generator. She said, “Devil, you are a liar. My God changed water to wine, He will change water to petrol”. She poured a gallon of water into the generator, laid hands on it and said, “Generator, in the mighty name of Jesus, start working”. She turned it on and it worked until the programme ended. That is faith. Is your faith still like that, or do you now rationalise everything?
To get back to your first love, you must once again go back to meditating on His word day and night. You must go back to spending more time with Him than you do with anyone else. You must choose to have Him as the first Person you speak to when you wake in the morning and the last you say goodnight to. You must choose to study your Bible and pray for long hours as you used to. Beloved, remember your first love.
One thing I need to warn you about is that God relates with us based on who we are and not who we were. He said in Ezekiel 18:21-24 that if a person has been doing good and then the fellow decides to become bad, He would forget the days of good and deal with the fellow based on his current disposition and vice versa.
Who are you to God now? The wonderful stories of your closeness to Him in the past do not matter anymore; the issue now is: how close are you to Him today? Beloved, return to your first love.
KEY POINT:
Beloved, remember your first love.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: Leviticus 22-23
HYMNAL:
Hymn 31 – Wonderful story of love