Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works. —Revelation 2:5

When Jesus found a fatal flaw in the church at Ephesus — that they were leaving their first love — He also gave His prescription for renewal and revival. They are the three Rs of returning to our first love: remember, repent, and repeat.

First, you need to remember. This word could be translated, “Keep on remembering.” What should you remember? You should remember where you were when Jesus Christ first found you. You were separated from Him by sin and on your way to a certain judgment. But He graciously and lovingly reached out to you and forgave you. All of us were separated from God and facing judgment. The essential thing Christ did for you is the same that He did for every person.

The psalmist described it this way: “He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps. He has put a new song in my mouth — praise to our God” (Psalm 40:2-3). Every Christian can say this. That is what Christ did for us.

Second, you need to remember where you were at the highest point of your love for Jesus. When was that high point in your spiritual life? Was it a month ago? A year? Ten years? Or was it today? Could you say, “At this moment in my life, I believe I am as close to the Lord as I have ever been”? If you can say that, praise God. If not, remember when you were closest to the Lord, mark it in your mind, and make it your aim to return there once again.

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. —Revelation 2:4

What is the first love that Jesus was speaking of in Revelation 2? It’s similar to the kind of love that two newlyweds experience. This is mentioned in Jeremiah 2, where God says, “I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (verse 2). God was saying to Israel, “I remember when we had that honeymoon type of relationship.” It was a close, intimate love.

This isn’t to say that two married people can and should have that feeling of butterflies in their stomachs forever. I remember that when I first met my wife, Cathe, I would experience a loss of appetite and would get sort of jittery around her. Today, I am more in love with Cathe than I have ever been, but I am not necessarily feeling those emotions that I felt when we first met.

In the same way, God isn’t saying that He expects us to walk around with a constant emotional buzz in our lives as a result of being His followers. But He is speaking of a love that doesn’t lose sight of the very things that brought it into being. When a husband and wife begin to take each other for granted, when their life begins to become a mere routine and the romance is dying, then you can know that marriage is in danger.

This can happen to us as believers. We can start taking God for granted. We can start taking church and our faith for granted. Sure, we’re still going through the motions, but have we left our first love?

You know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. —James 1:3–4

When a mother eagle teaches an eaglet to fly, she will very unceremoniously kick it out of the nest, which is usually ninety feet or more above the ground. As the little bird is falling, she will wait until it almost hits the ground. Then she will swoop down, pick it up, put it back into the nest, and kick it out again. She will do this again and again. After a while, that little eaglet starts using its wings. Now, this may seem like a cruel way to teach something, but that is how eagles learn to fly.

Sometimes God will kick you out of your nest. You might be in a comfort zone in which everything is going the way you want it to. Then the Lord will say, “It’s time for you to grow up. It’s time for you to stretch your faith. It’s time for you to spread your wings.”

God will test you because He wants you to mature. He wants you to develop a walk with Him that is not based on your fluctuating emotions, but on your commitment to Him as you learn to walk by faith.

Notice that James 1:2 does not say, “Count it all joy if you fall into various trials.” Rather, it says, “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials” (emphasis added). It’s only a matter of time until the next trial will come along. It isn’t an option. We all will be tested. The question is, when these tests come will you pass or fail?

He who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. —James 1:25

One afternoon, a brightly colored little bird landed in my backyard. My German Shepherd was a few feet away, and I knew the moment he saw that bird, it would become an appetizer for him. So I went over to the bird and bent down. It was shaking, with its feathers fluffed. When I held out my finger, the little bird hopped on.

I walked into the house and said to my wife, “Cathe, look at this little bird.” She turned around to see it perched on my finger.

“Where did you get that?”

“Our backyard.”

“It must be someone’s pet.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know who it belongs to.”

Just then, my son Jonathan walked in. He told us about a girl down the street who had a bird that died. He offered to run and get the cage. When he brought it back, we put it on the kitchen counter, opened the door, and placed the bird inside. The bird, which had stayed frozen on my finger all this time, suddenly came alive. He started chirping and hopping from perch to perch. His feathers smoothed down. It was obvious that he liked his new surroundings. Then it dawned on me: what we saw as a means to contain this little bird was, from his standpoint, a means of security and protection.

In the same way, God gives us His law. He gives us His standards. While we might see them as restrictive, they are, in reality, our source of protection. This is “the perfect law of liberty” that James is speaking of.

You, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith. —Jude 1:20

A sign posted at the end of the road on an airport runway reads, “Keep moving. If you stop, you are in danger and a danger to those who are flying.” We could apply the same principle to the Christian life: Keep moving. If you stop, you are in danger.

Why should we keep moving? Because we have a natural tendency to slip back into our old, sinful ways. Just as a car parked on a hill will naturally roll backward when shifted into neutral, we will naturally go the wrong way if we shift our Christian lives into neutral and stop seeking to learn and grow as believers.

Take a flower and a weed for example. Our old nature, that part of us that doesn’t want to obey God, is like a weed. Our new nature is like a flower. Now, my wife Cathe loves to grow flowers. She will tend them, care for them, fertilize them, and pull any weeds that get remotely close to them. And in the time it has taken for those flowers to grow a few inches, a weed will have found a crack in the sidewalk and has grown eighteen feet tall. How much nurturing did the weed need? None. It simply took off. Like Cathe’s beautiful flowers, our new nature needs nurturing. We need to do the things that will build us up spiritually. But if we cease to do those things, that old nature will come back to haunt us.

The Christian life isn’t just about obeying commandments. It is also about wanting to please the Lord, wanting to grow, and wanting to become more like Him.