OUCH!!!!

I was reading in Revelation this morning and there was a verse in chapter 2 that really stood out. Jesus is talking to the church at Ephesus and he says, "Hey you guys are following the rules, I know what you have been doing, all the hard work, all the stuff you have put up with and how you have made sure that evil stays out and the work for my name goes on; and you have not even grown weary." APPLAUSE HERE!!!!!! This is kinda where I can see everybody doing high fives saying "yeah we got it all together!"
Then the bomb of reality is dropped, "But I have this one thing against you, you have left your first love." OUCH!!!! It hit me like a ton of bricks, because that is what we do so often. We get all caught up in the Christian agenda of do this, do that, pray here, sing here, etc, all that stuff is great. However, we leave our first love, we leave the realization of what God has done for us through His son Jesus.
Recently I was out of town for a week. I thought of my wife and child often and even called several times the first few days, but as the week went on I became caught up with everything that had to be done, meetings, general sessions, concerts. It was a great week and I learned a lot. However when I stepped off that plane in Charlotte and began my descent down the escalator, there she was my wife, my companion, my best friend. It was at that moment that I knew I was returning to my love.
I truly believe that if we are not careful we can get so caught up in the agenda of the Christian life that we forget our first love. How sad it would be to reach the end of life and realize that although the things we did were good, we ultimately missed the best... (Revelation 2:1-5)