The Relationship Comes First

The Lord reminded me recently of this oft forgotten gem, the relationship comes first. Our relationship with him is primary. People who get busy "doing" for the Lord and forget the intimacy, have lost their first love. We are the bride, he is the bridegroom and we must give our focus and attention to him first. This does not mean doing this that and the other in his name, this means, time spent loving him, putting ourselves in his presence, waiting on him, being close to him. This means remembering our first love, it means putting first things first.

Revelation 2
1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: 3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. 4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. 5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent

Apparently the Lord takes this leaving thy first love issue seriously. Look at all the good things the Lord commended the church for before he issued his warning. They labored, they were patient, they did not tolerate evil men and yet he says, in spite of all that, if they did not repent of leaving their first love, he would come quickly and remove their candlestick from its place. We could argue for years over what that means, but suffice it to say you don't want it happening to you...

This issue ties directly in with this scripture we know so well: Matt 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

These people ^^ did lots of good things, unfortunately they forgot the most important thing, which was knowing him...loving him..he comes first. The example the Lord gave me to illustrate this point is the parents who work 100 hour weeks to buy their kids all kinds of stuff, send them to the best schools etc etc etc, all to find out that what their kids really wanted was just their parents, not all the stuff. The parents did did did, at the expense of never knowing their own kids. Same thing with the Lord.

If you are doing doing doing for him and not spending that time 1 on 1, in his presence, soaking up who he is. then stop everything. Stop everything and anything you are doing thats coming before your relationship, loving, quiet time with him. He is our first love. What he wants is US, not what we can do for him. What does an all powerful God "need" us to do for him anyway? He wants you...There's a place for "doing" but only after he gets you first.

More than ever we need him. All appearances are that something dreadful is going to happen soon, correction, lots of dreadful things are about to happen and we will need to stand on the the relationship built during our quiet and peaceful times in his presence. There is no substitute for simply being in the King's presence.

I've had more verizon internet problems over the weekend, was ready to post on Saturday but that did'nt happen, or Sunday. I appear to be back up. Take some time out today, maybe right now and reprioritize the things in your life if you are not getting some alone time with Him. We may be looking at days or weeks now before all hell breaks loose.

grace and peace