Drinking from the Sewer...

Hi! Dear Ones,

I pray that each of you found time in your day this week to spend with the Lord. Every one of the devotions in my prayer devotional journal was on this very subject this week, so if Andrew Murray thought it was important then I too think it is important to challenge ourselves in this important area.

I want to share with you the devotion from today. I hope it will encourage and challenge you.

The First Love found in Andrew Murray’s devotions on prayer

Revelation 2:4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at the first!”

In Revelation 2:2-3, eight signs are mentioned showing the zeal of the church at Ephesus, but there was one bad sign. The Lord said: ”Turn back to me again and work as you did at first. If you don’t, I will come and remove your lamp stand from its place among the churches.” What was this sin? “You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!”

We find the same sin in the church today. There is enthusiasm for the truth, there is continuous hard work, but what the Lord values most is missing: Tender, fervant love for Him.

A Christian maybe a good example in all he does, yet the tender love for Jesus is missing. There is no personal, daily fellowship with Christ. All the many activities with which people satisfy themselves are nothing in the eyes of the Master.

Dear friend, this book speaks of the fellowship of love with Christ and spending time in His presence. Everything depends on this. Christ came from heaven to love us just as the Father loved Him. He suffered to win our hearts for this love. His love can be satisfied with nothing less than deep personal love.

Christ considers this of prime importance. Le us do so, too, Even though we are doing many good things for the Lord, we must not leave our first love. Andrew Murray

The other evening in our Seeking Him Bible Study, Nancy Leigh DeMoss challenged us to not be married to the world, when we do this it is like drinking sewer water. I don’t know about you but sewer water doesn’t sound too appetizing to me. The church today has married the world, it has become tolerant of sin and because of this we have a lack of testimony to the world that doesn’t see the difference between the lost and holiness. Holiness is more than keeping man made rules, it is disconnecting our hearts from the world and connecting them to Christ. It is time the world and Christians separate from one another. We will only be as effective in reaching this world for Christ as we are practicing Holiness in each of our lives.

So my challenge to us is where is our first love? Do we love Jesus above everything? Are there areas of our lives that we have allowed worldly influences into? Are we drinking from the sewer?

I pray that we will all take a real look at ourselves to see if we need to return to our first love and then after returning to our first love we will continue to fellowship with him daily. He is our lifeline!

Blessings,

Deb