“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” -Revelation 2:4

The church of Ephesus did many things to serve the Lord, but they were rebuked for failing to give God their full affection. God is pleased with service, but what He really wants is our heart. This May, we will be digging into what it looks like to return to your First Love.

Click here to read Part 1: Prioritizing

Part 2: Give Up Your Idols
Fighting against idolatry is a daily battle. It’s hard not to pursue earthly ideas and possessions for the satisfaction our souls seek. We say to ourselves, “If I only had _____, then I would be happy.” And for some silly reason we believe it.

Sometimes we don’t even realize we have an idol. We just neglect watching our hearts to ensure they don’t wander; and before we know it we have dedicated ourselves to a new god. This god brings us some temporary relief and joy. So we pay more attention to our new shiny idol than to our amazing God.

It is far too easy to seek joy, peace, and satisfaction apart from God. Too bad it’s a waste of time.

Can you identify the idolatry in your own life? Ask yourself a few questions to determine what idols stand between you and God.

#1- What do you think about most?
Do you think about your finances the most? Money may be your idol. Do you think about your spouse or future spouse the most? Then marriage may be your idol. Do you think about your achievements and progress the most? Then success may be your idol.

You are driven by whatever consumes your thoughts. That’s why it is so important to identify your thoughts, capture them, and submit them to Christ. (2 Cor 10:5) Our thoughts will either bring us closer to Christ or encourage us to wander from Him.

#2- What do you have a hard time giving up?
In Matthew 19:16-22, Jesus asked the rich ruler to give up his possessions. The rich man couldn’t do it – his possessions were his idols. Imagine if Jesus came to you and asked you to give up something in order to follow Him. How would you react if Jesus came to you and said:

“Give up your career and follow Me.”or
“Give up your success and follow Me.” or
“Give up your comfortable living and follow Me.” or
“Give up sex and follow Me.” or
“Give up your marriage and follow Me.” or
“Give up your family and follow Me.”

Now, these are for illustrative purposes – I’m not suggesting you divorce your spouse and abandon your children to go “follow the Lord.” That goes against Scripture. (Though we all need to remember that our spouse and children can easily become our idols.)

Do, however, take a moment to think about how you would react to such statements. Is there something you refuse to give up in order to follow Christ? That something just may be your idol.

#3 – What do you believe will satisfy you?
“If I only had _____, then I would be happy.” How would you fill in this blank? What do you think will bring you happiness and fulfillment? A raise in salary? A degree? A spouse? Children?

Nothing – I repeat, nothing – will completely gratify your soul apart from a relationship with Christ. It seems logical to look for fulfillment in friends, finances, and our families, but they won’t bring you the peace and satisfaction your spirit is desperately seeking. Note that none of these things are bad, but they don’t exist to fulfill you, they exist to bring God glory. Good things come from God. God is the one Who is meant to be worshiped, not your idols.

Idols keep us from our First Love. Return to Him. He’s waiting.

“The plant is dead,” Grace replied. “I’m going to throw it out.”

Marty protested. “It’s not dead – it just needs some TLC. A little TLC and it’ll come back to life. Just like you when we first met.”

Grace’s first two marriages ended in disaster. Broken-hearted and discouraged, Grace decided marriage wasn’t something she wanted to attempt again. She built a wall around her heart, protecting it from any type of vulnerability. And the wall might have remained if God hadn’t sent in a man to demolish it.

Running late for class at church, Grace tried to sneak into the back to grab a seat. The chair she pulled up, however, had no interest in being sneaky. It was noisy, catching the attention of people in the room, including Marty. He looked over his shoulder, saw Grace, and instantly knew that she was the woman he was going to marry. He called his mother and sister both that night, announcing that even though he didn’t know her name, he knew she was his future bride.

Marty then started his footwork. He asked church members who Grace was. He found out her name, and that she was a divorced woman with a two year old son. Passing by the nursery one day, he saw the boy and he fell in love with the child just as instantly as he had fallen in love with Grace.

His feelings, however, were not reciprocated. Grace found Marty irritating. She rejected his pursuit, and even threw other women at him. Whenever a lovely young lady would cross her path, she would point to Marty and say, “See that guy over there? He’s looking for a girlfriend. You should go talk to him.” And they did. But Marty had all ready decided, and Grace’s efforts to set him up with someone else became futile.

To make things even harder on Grace, Marty soon became close friends with her family. Grace lived with her brother at the time, and Marty would appear at the door playfully stating he was there to see her nieces and nephews, not her. But his pursuit never ceased. Despite her attempts to avoid him, they would often cross in the hallway where Marty would smile and sing an old Hank Williams song, “…I’m going to melt your cold, cold heart.”

Grace was able to resist it. For awhile.

After five months of pursuit, Marty informed Grace that he would be taking a golf trip with his buddies and that he would be gone for a week.

“Why are you telling me this?” Grace replied. “I don’t care.”

But by this time, Grace had become accustomed to Marty’s persistent daily attention. As the first two days passed, Grace felt content with Marty’s silence. But by the third day, Grace became anxious. In the most non-nonchalant way possible, she asked her family members if they had heard from him. They hadn’t. The fourth day, she asked again. By the fifth day, she was completely frustrated by the fact that he had not spoken a word to anyone.

On the evening of the fifth day, she received a call from him.

“Where have you been!” she demanded, skipping past casual greetings.

He laughed. “You missed me!”

Reluctantly, she admitted that she had.

She could hear the phone drop at that point, but could hear Marty chanting in the background, “You missed me! You love me! You missed me! You love me!”

“I did NOT say I love you! I simply said I missed you!”

Her denial didn’t faze him. On the day he came home, he rushed from his car and ran to embrace her.

Looking back on the event, Grace describes it this way: “When he came home that day, I could just see the love pouring out of his eyes. I have never seen love like that before. It made the wall around my heart crack.”

Marty’s intentions to spend his life with Grace were true. His fearless pursuit and tender care helped raze the wall around Grace’s heart. He was aware of the task he had in front of him. Before he left on his week-long golfing trip, Marty had come to Grace and said, “Obviously you have been hurt before. But I want you to know that even though you and I know it was not me, I’m willing to pay for it and wait.”

They were married five months later. This year marks their 20th anniversary.

“The most important message I would want to relay,” Grace says, “is the fact that Marty and I have the relationship we have thanks to the fact that we love God more than we love each other. Therefore, our source of love, peace, joy, contentment and so on, is not each other but God; giving us the freedom to be who we are with each other without fear. When we give God our dreams, our sorrows, our fears, our will, He can turn beautiful things into manifest!”

If you are dating a foodie, you can make date night easily fun and memorable. Just center the date around a foodie’s favorite topic: food!

Go to a Tasting
Whether it’s cheese or chocolate, a sample platter is a great way to go with anyone who wishes to learn about a variety of flavors from all over the world. Look online and in the paper for nearby venues that offer tastings, or create your own platter to enjoy at home. Tastings are also great for double dates as well!

Join a Food of the Month Club
Larger businesses offer monthly samples of their company’s products. Join one of these clubs as a couple and get together once a month to test the lovely packages brought to your door. Subscribe to more than one food of the month club and see how you can combine the products together.

If you’d like a more hands-on experience, create your own food of the month club! Put together your own packages of treats to sample together.

Take Cooking Classes
Foodies love to learn how to make great gourmet dishes at home. Indulge their thirst for knowledge with a cooking class. Some places even offer date night cooking classes, such as Sur La Table. Cooking classes can be pretty pricey, but with some research you may be able to find some that are free. Check out local bakeries and specialty food retailers for classes. Or if it just so happens that you know how to do something your sweetheart doesn’t, host your own cooking class!

Create Your Own Cookbook
Do you have some family recipes you both want to pass down to your children? Or maybe you want to give a personalized gift to family and friends? Create a cookbook together. Combine favorite recipes in your book, adding in cooking advice, your special love story, and any bits of wisdom on love and life that you want to pass on. To mass produce your book, you may want to use a fundraiser publisher such as fundcraft.com. For only a few copies, sites like lulu.com should work well.

Thought: Don’t have enough recipes for a book? Why not try making a custom calendar? Create a collage each month of family photos and a special recipe to share.

Attend a Food Festival
Fruit festivals, Greek festivals, or BBQs all can hold plenty of excitement for a foodie. Local festivals are rarely in short supply, and they offer great samples. Be aware that some food festivals require tickets to be purchased in advance, or tickets may have to be purchased on site in order to taste food. Keep an eye out in the local newspaper for events, or check out foodreference.com/html/upcomingfoodevents.html

Visit a Foodie City
A food lover will never turn down a bit of travel to enjoy high quality food. Plan a day trip around a nearby city that is known for its food. Big cities are the most impressive way to go, but a little research reveals great small towns that offer hard to find treats. Pay special attention to the type of cuisine your sweetheart likes best, then find a city well known for it.

Realize What You Do Have
Pity parties can result from staring into the face of something we want but don’t have, such as marriage, kids, a close family, or a stable job. The belief that we may never have what we want steals our focus and warps our life view. Although our desires our real, they should not overshadow the great blessings that surround us.

Take out a piece of paper and write all the wonderful things you do have. Write out at least five positive things that happened to you today. Put your hope in Christ for your desires (Psalms 37:4) and remind yourself that whatever you desire is obtainable through Him. After that, look your desires in the eye and tell them that they don’t own you or your emotions.

Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
Hilary is beautiful and smart, Tony is charming and great at extreme sports. You compare yourself to one of them and BAM – instant pity party. One of the biggest defenses against self-pity is learning you were not meant to be anyone else but yourself. Each person is designed uniquely. Although there is nothing wrong with being inspired by others, trying to be someone else is exhausting.

Without comparing yourself to anyone, write who you are. Write down your likes, your personality traits, and your strengths. Notice how you are designed. Then on a separate piece of paper, write down your weaknesses. Circle your weaknesses and write next to it, “The Lord’s power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Remember That the Lord Loves You
Pity can overcome us when we feel unloved and forgotten. We blame and bully ourselves, calling ourselves ugly, burdensome, or unwanted. But you are wanted, loved, and priceless to God. He has been in pursuit of your since the beginning. Pray that the Lord opens your eyes to His love for you, and let yourself be willing to see it.

Meditate on Ephesians 3:17-19,  Romans 8:37-39, and Galatians 2:20, among other verses from God’s Word. You are not seen as inadequate or incomplete in God’s eyes. Remember that all things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26) and that is no reason to surrender to pity.

“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” -Revelation 2:4

The church of Ephesus did many things to serve the Lord, but they were rebuked for failing to give God their full affection. God is pleased with service, but what He really wants is our heart. This May, we will be digging into what it looks like to return to your First Love.

Part 1: Prioritizing

Some of us have good intentions but warped priorities. The Bible commands us to provide for our families, so we work hard. We want to be good stewards, so we spend time maintaining our home and other possessions. We want our children to know and follow the Lord, so we dedicate all of our extra time to our families. We’ve been called to ministry, so we direct all of our passion to the mission at hand.

But when we put these things above our relationship with God, we run into problems. We feel empty. We feel drained. We can’t find rest. Even if our to-do list has God in mind, it isn’t the same as putting God first. God wants us – not a completed to-do list. There are a few good reasons why God needs to be first.

Put God First Because He Said To
The First Commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3) Anything you put before God is an idol: work, school, family, ministry – anything. Although we should be diligent with our ministries and responsibilities, we are not to make those things more important than our personal relationship with the Lord.

Look back at the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. Martha wants to serve Jesus with her preparations, but Jesus says that spending time with him as Mary was doing was more important. Our responsibilities are important, but time with the Lord is more important. Your First Love should get the first of your attention.

Put God First Because Jesus Did
I don’t recall Jesus ever panicking over His to-do list, and His to-do list was pretty important. More important than yours, to be certain. If you watch, Jesus wasn’t concerned with “getting ahead” or being “on top of things.” He was concerned with glorifying the Father and doing the Father’s work, yet He wasn’t rushed about it. He took time to pray (Luke 5:16), He took time to eat and commune with others (Matthew 9:10) and He made detours to His destinations if it meant reaching out to someone. (John 4:3-26)

In Mark 1:12-13, we see that Jesus took 40 days off from His ministry to go into the wilderness. Forget a 40-day fast, would you be willing to go off for a weekend and do nothing but pray and spend time with God? (I bet your first thought was, “If I had the time…”) Jesus could have done a lot of miracles in 40 days. He knew the cross was coming and that His time for ministry was short. Knowing this, He could have easily made excuses not to do it, but He didn’t. As followers of Christ, we look to Christ as the example of how to live our lives. If Jesus could schedule time out of his day for God, so can we.

Put God First Because It Affects Everything
It’s hard to work and serve when your soul is empty. When we are not connected to the Vine, we wither and fail to bear fruit (John 15). Putting God first renews us; He restores our strength, our courage, and our peace. This rejuvenation makes us better spouses, better workers, better parents, and better friends. Martin Luther said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” When we return to our First Love before all others, our souls and spirits are filled with joy and hope despite the road and tasks ahead. We are no longer seeking spiritual rest in spiritual acts, but instead, in God Himself. The satisfaction we’re looking for, the acceptance we’re looking for, the deep love we’re looking for is only found in Christ.

Return to your First Love. He’s waiting.

Gods at War

Audience: All

Idols go to war to steal our heart’s affections. Many times, idols look common; they are simple in nature and desired by mankind. After all, what’s wrong with having a successful career or money in the bank? What’s the harm in enjoying sports, television, and food? And shouldn’t our goals in life include finding a spouse and loving our families? The problem is not in the things themselves – the problem is that we care about these things more than God Himself.

Kyle Idleman, author of Not a Fan, addresses the idols in life that steal our attention away from God. Humorous in illustration yet serious in application, Idleman guides his readers through every area of life, exposing the idols of this world that have taken the place of God in our hearts. Idleman reminds us of the amazing, jealous love of God who can never be replaced by the things our hearts pursue here. Although the battle rages on within our hearts between God and our idols, we make the final decision on who the victor is.

Topics Covered:

• Idolatry: the sin that all other sins stem from
• Identifying our idols: Look at what you dream of, what disappoints you, what upsets you, and what worries you
• God’s jealousy for our hearts
• The gods of our parents, our past, and our culture
• The god of food – trying to feed our souls with food
• The god of sex – the god who leaves you with nothing
• The god of entertainment – worshiping what amuses us
• The god of success – getting our worth from our resume
• The god of money – forgetting that all we own and earn belongs to God
• The god of achievement – paying more attention to our to-do lists instead of God
• The god of romance – looking to someone other than God to complete us
• The god of family – holding our children and parents higher than God
• The god of me – making life all about you instead of all about Jesus

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Learn more about Gods at War and purchase the small group DVD study at www.godsatwar.com