Revelation 2:4

Ever to be remembered is that best and brightest of hours, when first we saw the Lord, lost our burden, received the roll of promise, rejoiced in full salvation, and went on our way in peace. It was springtime in the soul; the winter was past; the mutterings of Sinai’s thunders were hushed; the flashings of its lightnings were no longer perceived; God was beheld as reconciled; the law threatened no vengeance, justice demanded no punishment.

Then the flowers appeared in our heart; hope, love, peace, and patience sprang from the sod; the hyacinth of repentance, the snowdrop of pure holiness, the crocus of golden faith, the daffodil of early love, all decked the garden of the soul. The time of the singing of birds had come, and we rejoiced with thanksgiving; we magnified the holy name of our forgiving God, and our resolve was, “Lord, I am yours, wholly yours; all I am, and all I have, I would devote to you.

You have bought me with your blood—let me spend myself and be spent in your service. In life and in death let me be consecrated to you.” How have we kept this resolve? Our espousal love burned with a holy flame of devotion to Jesus—is it the same now? Might not Jesus well say to us, “I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love”?

Alas! We have done very little for our Master’s glory. Our winter has lasted all too long. We are as cold as ice when we should feel a summer’s glow and bloom with sacred flowers. We give to God pennies when he deserves pounds—indeed, deserves our heart’s blood to be coined in the service of his church and of his truth.

But shall we continue this way? O Lord, after you have so richly blessed us, shall we be ungrateful and become indifferent to your good cause and work? O revive us that we may return to our first love, and do our first works! Send us a genial spring, O Sun of Righteousness.