Your Beloved Calls

06.09.09

J.A. Matteson

“But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” Revelation 2:4

A man newly born of the Spirit is captivated by the tender love of the Savior. The wonder of his being in Christ grips his thoughts day and night and he probes earnestly to comprehend the divine transformation that has taken within, perceiving the world, and life, altogether differently.

The tender mercies of Calvary’s blood stained cross stir his heart, producing a soul ache unspeakable and gratitude beyond the scope of human expression. A mix of joy and bewilderment fill his heart upon realizing that it was his sin for which the Lamb of God suffered and died in order that he might be set free from the bondage of sin and death, forgiven, and have his name written in the Lambs Book of Life.

His soul craves and thirsts for the pure milk of the Word as a man lost in a desert place convulses for the sweet pure water of an oasis, reading and meditating upon it at every opportunity as the Spirit of God applies the Word of God to the child of God. His heart is tender to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and he inclines his will in pursuing righteousness, the Kingdom, and forsaking sin through repentance. Still quite moments in green pastures alone with the Great Shepherd in prayer are his utmost delight and as a young man captivated by the love of a beautiful maiden he cannot restrain himself, but speaks forth continually of the wonders and delights of his new relationship.

Delighted in God it is his ambition to lead others to the Savior that they too might be recipients of grace, and so he labors in the Lord’s vineyard joyfully plowing, sewing, watering, cultivating, and in all ways tending it, testifying and reasoning with the sons of Adam with great patience and understanding. The outworking of the influence of the Spirit in the new creation in Christ Jesus is a dogged obedience rooted in love and gratitude, to be and do those things pleasing in His sight, and his deeds are not a mere external display, but the outward of expression of an inner disposition of grace whereby the branch is learning to abide in the Vine and where the Life of the Vine flows through the branch.

Early on the Providence of the Lord typically hedges in the babe in Christ Jesus allowing the roots of faith to grow down firmly before the winds of adversity come, and so obedience is relatively easy at this point, for the seasons of protracted suffering have not yet arrived, those that will test and refine faith, and where obedience at a higher lever is learned through the lessons of adversity. And when the contrary winds eventually begin to blow and the sea waves build, grace enables the saint to persevere by infusing the heart with the knowledge that the difficulty in which he finds himself is a tool in the hand of the Lord to further his sanctification. While the pilgrim knows this in his head the protracted seasons of suffering tend to erode away at the first love he initially enjoyed in the Beloved. And while he dutifully remains obedient to the King and His Kingdom the flame of that first love may dim as he settles into the routine of his pilgrimage—the peaks and valleys—a mental resignation can set in, and the vibrant flame of love is insidiously replaced with a placid orthodoxy void of warmth, empty of passion.

Pilgrims will encounter this awkward place of an ebbing first love while on pilgrimage. The Lord’s antidote to it is to remember, remember back to the earlier days when the relationship was new and engage in the things previously spoken of above and thereby experience the passion again. As a husband and wife can drift emotionally apart over the years in response to protracted hardship in life, settling into a morass of relational mediocrity, so the pilgrim of the Lord can find himself in the same place of going through the motions as a Kingdom citizen and yet his joy has evaporated—he has left sight of his first love, that of the early days with the Savior.

As His bride can you hear your Beloved call to you now?, “…Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me” (Song of Solomon 2:10). He awaits, what’s keeping you?

Copyright 2009 Immutable Word Ministries ("...the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:8)