When I sat with the Lord I heard the Spirit of God say, “I am igniting the hearts of my people and igniting their first love. As they open their hearts and they understand who I am they will then understand who they are in me. As their first love is ignited, they will ignite others.”

Our first love is the zeal and passion with which we embrace our salvation as we realise we love Christ because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Because of God’s love for us we are made alive in Christ and we are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). As we are so overwhelmed by the joy of the Lord and all He has done for us we can’t but exude the love and message of Jesus to those around us. The passion for Jesus that we experience as our first love spills over into our everyday lives and impacts those around us. May we open our hearts to receive more of God’s love so that we may release that love to others. Jesus wants His church to be known for loving others. In John 13:35 He said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Our first love is also seen in our hunger for the truth and the things above. When our first love is aflame we are eager to study God’s word and we hunger to know more. We have an ever increasing desire to know more of who God is, what it means to be in the kingdom of God and what it looks like to walk in the fullness of our inheritance in Christ. The Lord wants this passion for truth and revelation to ever increase and not grow cold.

The Lord wants to ignite the hearts of His people so that they are motivated by His love for them and they showcase that love to others. The Lord desires that we pursue Him with steadfast devotion. If we draw near to God, He will draw near to us (James 4:8). If we will do this we will grow in deeper relationship with Him and will then come into a greater revelation of His character and who He really is. We will then know our identity in Christ and all that is available to us in the kingdom of God. We will know we are truly loved and desired by Him and that we can walk in freedom, without condemnation or limitation.

May our first love be ignited and never grow dull so we will be ablaze and ignite others!