Faith-bearing Seed for the Soul
"While the earth remaineth,
Seedtime and harvest
....shall not cease"

Genesis 8:22

What a "Crying" Shame

We see them everywhere...couples looking at each other with bashful, blushing glances of admiration. He can't seem to touch her enough to show his affection and love. She shyly responds by snuggling closer to him. Everyone looks on and grins, thinking... "Young love, they must not be married yet!"

You may see the same couple several years after marriage... What a difference! He wants to be with the guys...she is constantly complaining about sundries of things...they don't seem to have a civil word for each other... What happened to that first love? Why has it been lost?

So often we become so "secure" in a relationship to the point that we don't feel like we have to put any effort into it because we have gotten what we wanted. The other person becomes more like a possession than someone we continually appreciate and desire to please. Pleasing ourselves becomes our top priority. We eventually begin separating and going our own ways until the relationship is destroyed. What a crying shame!

To keep a love relationship burning, we have to never leave that first love experience. The church at Ephesus, in the book of Revelation, stopped loving the Lord as they did at first. Here's what the Lord told them:

Revelation 2:4,5 LB

Yet there is one thing wrong; you don't love me as at first! Think about those times of your first love (how different now)! And turn back to me again and work as you did before; or else I will come and remove your candlestick from its place among the churches.

With our salvation comes an eternal security...You could say that we've gotten what we want...our "ticket" to heaven. Some feel this gives them the liberty to turn to pleasing themselves, for after all, they are living under His grace and they feel like they can do as they please and still get into heaven. Soon their relationship with the Lord waxes cold. It's rather hard to discern by their attitude and actions that they have ever known salvation. There is no evidence of a "new creation" where the old man has passed away and all things have become new. Getting the most and best for themselves takes top priority. Carnality controls!

Yes, God has given us the "liberty" to love Him and to leave Him. He will never leave us, but He gives us the choice to leave Him,  or to cling to Him with the same love we began with.

GALATIANS 5:13-14 (Emphasis mine)

"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty;  only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF."

If your marriage in the natural has become just tolerable and there seems to be little desire to continue on, or if the Lord seems to be far away, the way to correct both situations is the same...Be sorry for your self-centered actions and turn back to how it was in the beginning...Keeping love alive takes continual effort. We have to work at it.

Revelation 2:5

"Think about those times of your first love....and turn back... and work as you did before."

Rooted and grounded in the love of Christ Jesus,

Marlene JuHaros,

Texas Seed Sower

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Eccl. 11:6

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