There was much in the life of the angel of the church at Ephesus that was praiseworthy; but something was lacking.  He had left his first love.  But, what is the first love?  There is no difference between first love and last love if it be love.  Pure, genuine love is the same always—­first, last, and all the time.  The overseers of this church, and doubtless the church in general, had lost the ardor of the love which they had at the first.  Oh, the warmth, the sweetness, of first love!  Do you not remember it, dear reader?  When you were so clearly and wonderfully born of the Spirit of God, how ardent was the love in your heart!  It thrilled you with delight.  There was a delicious, sweet taste all through your soul.  How gladly you would have taken wings and have flown away to the arms of Him whom your heart loved.  The word of God was to your soul like honeyed dew upon your lips.  How delightful it was to labor for Jesus!  How preciously sweet to make the greatest sacrifices for his sake! and to go away into some secret place and pray was dearer to you than can ever be told.  You found the greatest pleasure in attending to every Christian duty.  I should be glad if I could describe to you just what that first love was in your heart.  I can not do this, neither can you; but you know how it felt, and how joyful was your soul.  Oh, blessed happy day, when your sins were washed away, and love sang its sweetest lay within your soul!

Now, if you do not have the same ardor; the same warmth; the same sweet relish for prayer, for the word of God, for a meeting; the same thrilling sense of sweetness in your soul; that same precious drawing toward God and toward the brethren; that same delight in laboring for Jesus; that same joy and happiness in making sacrifices for him and for your fellow man:  if you do not feel those symptoms of love as deeply and as delightfully, and if they are not in you as actively as they were at the first,—­you are like the church at Ephesus—­you have left your first love.  In Wilson’s excellent translation this text reads, “Thou hast relaxed thy first love.”  They had lost the intensity of their first love.  It had relaxed, or lost tension, and had become languid.  It does not matter to what you testify, or who you are, if you have not the same ardor and deep intensity of love that you had at the first, you have relaxed love.

Do not deceive yourself.  Do not make any excuses.  There is no necessity of losing this fervency of love.  The leaping, thrilling, bounding love can be kept in the full blaze of its intensity in your soul as long as you live.  I can never encourage a cessation of love.  No matter what the circumstances, we can increase and abound more and more in love.  You may have works, you may have labor, you may have patience; so did the church at Ephesus; but they had relaxed their first love.