How do you know if your “first love” for Jesus is fading? Here are a few significant indicators that your love for Jesus may be waning, and an encouragement to fuel the fire of your love for Him.
- You can go hours or days without having more than a passing thought of Him.
- You don’t have a strong desire to spend time with Him.
- You don’t have a strong hunger for the Word; Bible reading is a “chore”—something to mark off your “to do” list.
- Spending time in prayer is a burden/duty rather than a delight.
- Your worship is formal, dry, lifeless, merely going through the motions.
- Private prayer and worship are almost non-existent . . . cold and dry.
- You are more concerned about physical health, well-being, and comfort than about the well-being and condition of your soul.
- You crave physical food while having little appetite for spiritual food.
- You crave human companionship more than a relationship with Christ.
- You spend more time and effort on your physical appearance than on cultivating inner spiritual beauty to please Christ.
- Your heart toward Christ is cold and indifferent, not tender as it once was, not easily moved by the Word, talk of spiritual things, etc.
- Christianity is more of a checklist than a relationship with Christ.
- You measure spirituality (yours/others’) by performance rather than the condition of the heart.
- Christianity is defined more what by what you “do” than who you “are” (“doing” vs. “being”).
- Your obedience and service are motivated and fueled by expectations of others or a desire to impress others, more than by passion for Christ.
- You are more concerned about what others think and pleasing them than about what God knows and pleasing Christ.
- Your service for Christ and others is motivated by a sense of duty or obligation.
- You find yourself becoming resentful over the hardships and demands of serving Christ and others.
- You can talk with others about kids, marriage, weather, and the news but struggle to talk about the Lord and spiritual matters.
- You have a hard time coming up with something fresh to share in a testimony service at church or when someone asks, “What’s God been doing in your life?”
- You are formal, rigid, and uptight about spiritual things rather than joyful and winsome.
- You are critical or harsh toward those who are doctrinally off-base or living in sin.
- You enjoy secular songs, movies, and books more than songs or reading material that point you to Christ.
- You prefer the company of people who don’t love Christ to the company and fellowship of those who do.
- You are more interested in recreation, entertainment, and having “fun” than in cultivating intimacy with Christ through worship, prayer, the Word, and Christian fellowship.
- You display attitudes or are involved in activities that you know are contrary to Scripture, but you continue in them anyway.
- You justify “small” areas of disobedience or compromise.
- You have been drawn back into sin habits that you put off when you were a young believer.
- “Little” things that used to disturb your conscience no longer do.
- You are slow to respond to conviction over sin—or you ignore it altogether.
- You enjoy certain sins and want to hang onto them. You are unwilling to give them up for Christ.
- You are not grieved by sin—it’s no big deal to you.
- You are consistently allured by certain sins.
- You are self-righteous—more concerned about sin in others’ lives than in your own.
- You are more concerned about having the right position than the right disposition.
- You tend to hold tightly to money and things rather than being quick to give to meet the needs of others.
- You rarely give sacrificially to the Lord’s work.
- You rarely have a desire or burden to give when you hear of legitimate financial needs within the body, your church, or a ministry.
- Accumulating and maintaining material “things” consumes more time and effort on your part than seeking after and cultivating spiritual riches.
- You have broken relationships with other believers that you are unwilling or have not attempted to reconcile.
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