How To Keep Your First Love

In the early days of our ministry, we had to shut the lights and ask people to leave the church, when it was time to lock the doors and leave. This usually happened 2 hours after the service was over. We had people leaving the church weeping, laughing, speaking in tongues, feeling numb in their body parts. There was a time, our pastor had to send people every night to tell me to stop praying and worshiping, because it was time to leave. We had people speaking in tongues in their cars coming to church, and prophesying on the way back.

We had genuine manifestations, and we had weird ones, but that was OK. We had special prayer services for the gifts of the Spirit. The entire movement was founded on a call from God, and God kept watering it and making it grow.

Church growth has always intrigued me. The five fold ministry has always intrigued me. Now, after more than 12 years, I cannot stress enough the importance of the offices of the apostle, prophet, teacher, pastor and evangelist. The world is in desperate need of real apostles, sent out to declare, to establish, to proclaim the Kingdom and set foundations. The church is in desperate need of prophets and teachers, pastors and evangelists.

As the Church grows and each individual awakens to his/her unique gifting and calling, the church spreads across the map and the fruit of that intimacy with God is manifested in diverse areas of life. To keep our first love, our inner most need for adoration of God becomes more and more important. To preserve that sense of dependency needs practical measures, but more importantly it needs a deep understanding of our identity, our sonship, which came about by our adoption through the cross.

I have to confess that I have struggled for many years to preserve what I had. Until one day, God revealed to me that the key to preserving it is to stay in awe of Him. And that my friends is not done by any other means but the cross. You see it was the bronze serpent lifted in the air that would grab the attention of Israelites in the desert and heal them. Likewise it is the cross, God's own work that opens this mesmerizing portal of revelation, that is so rich that keeps us in awe of His goodness and greatness. Maintaining a discipline, without the life of revelation will not help us.

Eve was deceived. She thought to gain knowledge of good and evil is better than life. God had to send His only begotten Son to die on a tree to provide a more attractive and desirable thing for mankind than the knowledge of good and evil.

Studying the Bible is good. Conferences are awesome. Bible College is great. But the cross... that's something else! And if we want to be honest with ourselves, we would admit that not knowing much made it easier for us to remain in awe in our earlier days. Gaining knowledge is not a problem. The challenge is remaining in awe despite gaining knowledge. The challenge is to keep ourselves in awe, and USING knowledge to go deeper still in revelation.

Paul warns the church not to be led astray, robbed, deprived of the simplicity, the innocence, the devotion we have in Christ (2 Cor 11:3). Jesus said we need to become like children to enter the Kingdom.

I write this to inspire all to return to that place of worship before the cross. After receiving free healing from leprosy, Naaman had only one request from Elisha: a piece of land, so that he can come there to worship (2 Kings 5:17).

Joshua didn't rely on the experience or knowledge he had. He had seen Moses speak face to face with God and would not leave that tent, even after Moses did. He made the sun and moon stand still for a whole day, and the Bible says there never was a day like it and never will there ever be, when the Lord fought for His people. The cross is our portal into that eternal day where the LORD fights our battles keeps us in awe, brings us into His rest, makes us want to worship, want to serve, lose our minds in devotion to Him, and discover our true worth and purpose. Blessings!