A Lost Love
Albert Bogle
January 30, 2022
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Listen to this daily worship
Revelation 2: 4-5, Luke 4: 14-30 (NIVUK)
(Revelation 2) 4 Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far 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.
(Luke 4) 14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: “Physician, heal yourself!” And you will tell me, “Do here in your home town what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.”’
24 ‘Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his home town.25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.’
28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
The above passages of scripture speak directly to the situation that many of us find ourselves in today. Somewhere along the line we have lost that drive we had when we first encountered the presence of the Lord Jesus in our lives.
Instead we find ourselves in a distant place. So many things have alienated us from our first love. The result of Covid restriction has caused many church goers to begin to reconsider what church is all about. The rituals of worship, the routines of meetings, and dare I say it the ugly side of church politics and theological differences, has brought about a disconnect and a discontent in the lives of many good Christian people. Our readings today invite us, as will all our reflections this month, to continue to take stock in order to return to first principles and rediscover the love of God that somehow still holds us and the love that commands us to go and make disciples. It was this love of the Father that sustained Jesus in his ministry and still sustains us today
PRAYER:
Risen Lord,
It all happened so subtly,
The feeling crept up so slowly,
Until I found myself,
Performing an empty routine a ritual
Without faith, passion, or gospel
Love had gone
I was in the midst of an unending cycle
Meetings, minutes, regulations
I was like a Ringmaster
Looking for posts to be filled
Roles to be played
Money to be raised
Then Covid came
It all stopped
I started to breathe again
And love returned
Now I want to start all over again
I want church to be church
No longer a cycle of events
Show me Lord
How to love you with all my heart
I don’t want the Ringmaster’s part
I want to know the Love of Father
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