We were on the Isle of Patmos, just outside the cave where St. John is said to have lived in exile and to have written his letters to the Asian churches.
"Those seven messages are so alive today, so relevant, they might well have been written for us," our tour lecturer, a canon in the Church of England, told the group. "For instance, to the church at Ephesus, where we were yesterday, John wrote, Thou hast left thy first love.'" Rev. 2:4;
This inspired man of the cloth paused, then quietly added, "You may want to give some thought to your 'first love.'"
Would you like to know what went through my mind then and long after?
Splendid!
I remembered that John was speaking of the love this church had at first. It had cooled. But I got to thinking of "first love" as meaning "most important love"—then, now, and always. I felt sure God was and is my first love, but, gratefully, not the unknown one Paul said the men of Athens worshiped (see Acts 17). I treasure the seven synonyms for God Christian Science has taught me to find stated or implied in the Bible (Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle, Truth, Life, Love), plus the many other terms for Deity used in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science.
I thought: All terms aside, my first love actually is who or what I set my affections on, put my trust in, give power to. Can I in good conscience say, "Yes, I love God first and most"? Aren't there times when I feel a little like the prodigal son?
Maybe you too have occasional first love slumps. At such times it's helpful to remember that when baseball players have batting slumps they bat their way out—game by game, with extra batting practice in between. They don't just wish their way out.
Neither can we. It's study harder; pray more often; declare continually that because God is omnipresent, and because man is His manifestation, we can't leave the Father and the Father can't desert us. These and other spiritual facts may seem to be just words. But they are the right words, as recorded in the Bible, and in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and the other writings by Mrs. Eddy. From such study and prayer we can expect not only to feel God's presence but to be reassured that we are forever the Father's first love—regardless of how inconsistently He is ours. But is it enough to profess to adore God supremely? The Bible asks, "He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" I John 4:20; So, to prove God is my first love, I must first love; love my neighbor as myself.
Doing so begins with the most important thing in my day—identifying myself as the expression of God's being. Mrs. Eddy writes, "... thou shalt recognize thyself as God's spiritual child only, and the true man and true woman, the all-harmonious 'male and female,' as of spiritual origin, God's reflection,—thus as children of one common Parent,— wherein and whereby Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine 'Us'—one in good, and good in One." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 18;
The metaphysical is where we start. But certainly to acknowledge that we are "children of one common Parent" is of no practical use until we love our fellowman from that premise, as did the world's most scientific man, Christ Jesus. If, as he did, we constantly keep in mind man's relationship to God, whom we have not seen, this will enable us to love our brother, whom we can then see in the best possible light.
You may want to check yourself on the nature of your love for others. Is it only human love, which requires an object to activate it? Or is it an expression of impartial divine Love, which requires no object but blesses all? The distinction was made clear in this incident related by one of Mrs. Eddy's biographers. When a member of her household asked her, "Do you love me?" she answered after a thoughtful pause: "I just love. As the sun just shines, I just love." Irving C. Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1966), p. 172;
Beware! Carnal-mindedness and personal sense, perverting our great desire to love mankind, may tempt us to try to serve both God and mammon. Worse yet, we may be enticed into wanting to serve mammon first, even exclusively.
But alert scientific Christians don't take the bait. With them, love of possessions, position, or persons does not take precedence over obedience to divine Principle. God is not their first love only when mammon has failed, or by special permission of persons, no matter how much loved humanly. With spiritual understanding and genuine affection we can keep priorities in the right order, glorify God, and live up to our highest individual Christian sense of "one common Parent"—in the community, at work, in church.
And particularly in the home. The Sermon on the Mount calls for the utmost Christianity in spiritual living. And Christian Science endorses the moral responsibilities we owe fellow members of the human race, including parents, children, and other relatives. The animality in human thought seems more aggressive today; it would openly devalue the attributes of Love and Principle—in fact, all that underlies and girds society.
Nehemiah gives the challenging call, "Fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses." Neh. 4:14; Fight, yes. But how?
Does Jesus take the fight out of Nehemiah's imperative with "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life"? Matt. 19:29; There's no contradiction here. Rather, Jesus is actually telling us how to fight for them—to forsake them for his name's sake, for the sake of the nature of Christ. That is, love them enough to give them to God—to relinquish a human sense of ownership and ultimate responsibility—and mean it!
Fight for family? You bet.
In the face of the world's belief in genes and roots, identify each of them as we do ourselves—as an heir of God, not born of physicality or of human will but of God (see John 1:13). Identify each as first a member of God's family.
Won't our love of God, whom we have not seen, increase as we love our brother more, whom we have seen? Obviously, yes.
But, you may say, "I agree with your reasoning. I know that the two great commandments are inseparable and that spiritual growth comes as I obey both. But I can acknowledge the first much more easily than I can demonstrate the second. How do I do that?"
• Desire. Loving others in the right way begins with motivation; wanting to share, to be unselfed, to put fear and timidity aside and be willing to heal others as well as yourself. Oh, the power of right motives! And desire is indispensable to demonstration.
• Prayer. The prayer of supplication helps: Oh, dear God, teach me to love as You do, that I may prove how You, Love, are reflected in love. Affirmation too. Being under the law of divine Love, we can invoke that law right now and know that in our real being we are at one with Love; that we know and function only as Love does. Our love is unselfed, impartial, never varying. And we have the God-given, God-directed ability to demonstrably be Love's expression.
• Practice. Then there's practice. "Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion," writes Henry Drummond in his work, The Greatest Thing in the World. "It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character— the Christ-like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice." How Jesus practiced! In the second chapter, Luke tells that as a child the Master increased in stature, in wisdom, and in favor with both God and man. Note: God and man. Surely we're to practice as Jesus did if we would increase in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man.
• Patience and constancy. If practicing seems to be without gain, remember, drops of water wear mountains away. And which whack of the ax brought the tree down? Which blow of the sledgehammer shattered the rock—the first, the last, or the ones in between? Oh, for patience and constancy! Mrs. Eddy writes of the genuine disciple: "If honest, he will be in earnest from the start, and gain a little each day in the right direction, till at last he finishes his course with joy." Science and Health, p. 21;
Rejoice! This "course" is the journey from material sense to Soul-sense. It is working out one's own salvation. The rules for achieving the goal are inseparably and interchangeably scientific and Christian—not one or the other. Consequently, if you and I do our very best as Christians, we'll do our best scientifically and can acknowledge, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." II Tim. 4:7.
Along the way we will come to see that the mammon of materiality cannot rule our hearts and minds. We'll know where our treasure is, and so where our heart is. We'll set our affections on, put trust in, and give power to our relationship with God. Then we can know for certain that God is our first love—not on occasion, but for this moment, the next, and forever.
