You Have Left Your First Love – Part 1

The lecture revolves around God’s gentle rebuke to His children who have left their first love, based on the words of the Lord: “I have against you that you have left your first love.” God does not rebuke the lost but His beloved ones, desiring them to return to Him with a heart burning as in the beginning.
The sermon explains that a person may keep his works, service, and prayers but lose the warmth of the first love that once filled his heart at the start of repentance or ministry. He once prayed with tears, spoke to God with longing, and served with zeal, but over time everything became routine and emotionless.
Pope Shenouda shows that the most dangerous sign of losing the first love is when prayer becomes words without connection, service without warmth, and faith without full trust as before. He reminds that even the angel in the Lord’s hand can be reproved if his love cools.
He gives biblical examples: Solomon, who began with great wisdom and love but fell when he became absorbed in worldly glory; and Job’s friends, who turned from compassion to criticism when their love grew cold. He also explains that busyness, fear, gossip, and doubt can steal from the heart its first love for God.
The Lord calls every soul to remember from where it has fallen and repent, because losing love is not a small weakness but a fall that needs true repentance.
The core message is that Christianity is not about external deeds but a true love relationship between the soul and God, and that returning to the first love is a return to life, simplicity, and the spiritual warmth that delights the Lord’s heart.

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