Growing Cold (Matt 24:12-13)

20140106-130447.jpgI love bibles. Even though I tend to use my phone more often than an actual bible I still love having and holding the actual book. It makes me happy even to just see them. As a result I have various translations and study bibles all over the house. Today I picked up one that I used regularly in the early (and desperate) years of my marriage and as I read the notes I’d written in the margins I realized something, I have grown cold.

Make no mistake, I’m not saying I don’t have a relationship with the Lord anymore. It’s just it’s more like a married couple who’ve slid into a routine. Yes, they love each other. Yes, there’s strong commitment. But they don’t write love songs to each other anymore. The “heat” of the relationship is gone.

And while commitment and love are important things, passion is too. The Lord is jealous for our affections. He is constantly wooing us and drawing us more in love with Him. We should be doing the same.

The word warns us about this growing cold in Matthew 24:12-13 (NLT):

Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

I don’t want to grow cold. And yet as I read the love song I wrote the Lord that I found in the margin of my bible, I have to concede I’m not in a place of that kind of “heat” anymore. And while I may not have allowed myself to cool off intentionally, now that I’ve SEEN it, the question becomes: what am I going to do about it?

I am determined to heat up again. To find that place where love songs overflow and I smile all day like a lovesick schoolgirl simply because I’m so enamored of Him.

I encourage you to search your heart and take a temperature of your relationship with Him, and if you find yours lacking too – find that place of ardent affection that won you to Him in the first place.

To quote a song written by an associate pastor at a church I used to attend (Kerry Brooks):

Spirit blow on smoldering embers until flames of passion burn again. Consume my heart within. Return me to my first love…

Yes, dwell in that place of “first love” – where love songs, poems, flowers, and surprises abound.

Father, you hear the cry of my heart today. I know You desire the heat of my love even more than I desire to give it, so I ask that You help me to find that place again. I want to be even more passionate than I was then because I know the depth of relationship is more now because of all I’ve walked through with You over the years. Please forgive me for allowing my affections to cool. I want so much to have a radically beautiful, ardently passionate relationship with You. Please help me get there – I want to be pleasing to You! Thank You for Your patience with me. You’re far more merciful than I can comprehend.

 

5 Replies to “Growing Cold (Matt 24:12-13)”

  1. thank you for your openess. this post is so precious and speak a lot.
    love you, may the Love of our Beloved inflames us more and more each day in Yeshua’s name!

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  4. I just prayed the prayer that you shared at the end. Life’s hard right now, but if I hadn’t grown so cool, it wouldn’t be as bad. Bless you, Meghan, & thanks…your old blog posts still have impact.

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