Have you forgotten God?

Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number. Jeremiah 2:32

You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Isaiah 17:10

Israel has forgotten his Maker... Hosea 8:14

I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Revelation 2:4

 It is no accident you are here this morning hearing what the Holy Spirit has to share with us  - loud and clear.

Just as how unnatural it is for a girl/lady to forget her jewels/fine clothes it is unnatural for us to forget God and cherish not the fond memories of our past affection. Yet some of us have gone astray. We have forsaken our first love.

Hope this is not entirely true in our case. But if we are not conciousely making every effort to stay in love, we will be easily carried away by worldly affairs making us remember the Lord less and less. If we are not watchful very soon we will be far from the Lord heading into darkness.

Definitely it is not something that will go unnoticed by God. He would sense the slightest withdrawal from us. We will be crucifying Him all over again when we do that.

What is it that we lack in Him that we forget Him from time to time? That we do not make time for Him? That we go days on end without hearing from Him or talking to Him?

Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. James 4:4

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:15

You have forsaken your first love...

I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Revelation 2:4

“‘I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Jeremiah 2:2

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold... Matthew 24:12

As much as we don't want to admit, there is a complaint against us this morning - that we don't love the Lord enough - not as much as we used to.

When love becomes cold in any relationship, it doesn't take too long for total disaster of 'growing apart'. Growing apart from God's love would be a tragedy in the real sense.

What do we do about it? How do we get back to our first love? Who can tell us what need to be done? Let us not panic. We have the answers for our questions in the Scriptures itself. Let us look at a few:

* Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

* Let those who love the LORD hate evil. Psalm 97:10
* He who stands firm to the end will be saved. Matthew 24:13

* Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. James 1:21

* Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. I Peter 2:1

* Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. Ephesians 4:25

* Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. I Peter 1:22

As you can see, loving the Lord involves a total re hauling of our inner being, a complete makeover if you will - getting rid of the unwanted, bringing in the must-have's, washing, cleaning, scrubbing, loving the good, hating the evil, purifying our hearts, obeying the truth, humbling ourselves, accepting the word, the list goes on... as we read more of the Scriptures.

Let us make it our priority to love the Lord - as much as it is expected of us. Let us get back to our former love - the way we first loved Him!