The Established Heart 8 - Activating First Love - David Mitts


"'But I have this against you, that you have left your first love." Revelation 2:4

Reality is founded on love. We have been indoctrinated into accepting a universe that is held together by dead cosmic forces. Space has been described as cold and dead. God has been relegated to a belief system and is perceived by most as an antiquated tool or crutch of the mentally and emotionally immature who cannot grasp and accept the impersonal nature of a universe that is both uncaring and actually perceived through the lens of climate change as intolerant of both the ignorance and the outright hubris of humanity.


The proponents of technology as a legitimate god supplanting the need for a personal God of love have argued that humans are at war with nature and unless we discover a more effective way to co-exist with the natural order, we stand on the brink of overpopulation and the potential for mass extinction. The narrative includes criticisms of ourselves as bigoted, antiquated, and actually dangerous entities bent on exploitation and corruption of the planet we inhabit.

All of this rhetoric is targeted to generate a lot of shame and fear. If you’re on the positive side of the conversation, then your “sensitivity” is a personification of the thinking and priorities brought about in response to the pressures of shame. You are required to agree with the narrative that describes you as a spoiled and privileged person or group of persons who carries the guilt of your nature and the goal is to get to some mythical concept called a zero footprint. As a human being, you are defined by this viewpoint as a source of negative environmental impact. You are guilty by your nature.

In an almost comical nature, original sin as a doctrine has been translated to human nature in a godless way and your salvation is to find a way to atone for your nature, as a toxic being, through adhering to policies and practices that the environment police have determined as atonement for the sin of your humanity. Like the church which views man as fundamentally flawed, born sinful, the environmental shame godless state church preys on those same feelings.

This is a strategy of satan as old as time. We are born in God’s image and likeness. Sin is NOT a product of our birth but of the world system we are born into. We are born to be blessed, not as a curse. If you think about it, it’s this birth guilt concept that leads to the abomination called abortion! Viewing children as sinful is a set up for judgment. Viewing children as God’s unique creations, which are to be blessed and lead into the path of righteousness through Messiah, transforms our entire attitude and culture.

It is the godless, guilt-ridden world system of shame and fear that seeks to strip the world of God and His Love. Iniquity abounds as normal in this system, perversions of the vilest and Godless sort. Yeshua prophesied that we would experience this time:

""Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold." Matthew 24:12


We were born for such a time as this. Like Esther in the time of the Persian world rule, our time is full of evil and the Haman’s of our day. Their goal is the destruction of the testimony of God in the land. Like Mordechai who prophesied Esther’s purpose, we need to prophesy to ourselves and our generation:

""For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews (people of God) from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?"" Esther 4:14

Like Esther, we need to realize that we have attained royalty for such a time as this.

We did not and cannot choose the hour we live in, BUT we can choose who we are in this hour!

What do I mean by attaining royalty? The Apostle Peter describes us as a royal priesthood:

"But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;" 1 Peter 2:9

We have an authority that comes from the Kingdom of God. Though we live in dark times, we are called into His marvelous light. As citizens of the light and filled with His love, we are called to show love to a loveless world.

This is our calling. It is our foundation stone.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love" Ephesians 1:3-4


Love is the foundation stone of reality. Love isn’t just something we choose to do. It is where our choices come from. Love is the molecular glue that animates all of life. God is love and He is in all and through all.

"one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." Ephesians 4:6

This means reality cannot be perceived as it is without the eyes of love! Paul specifically prayed that our spiritual eyes would be enlightened to this reality!

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might" Ephesians 1:18-19

The eyes of the heart is an expression that speaks of seeing life through our heart which is connected by the Holy Spirit to love. This shapes our perception of love and reality.

"and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Romans 5:5

The Holy Spirit pours out God’s love. This produces hope or the promise of a better future. Love is the power that can guarantee us a future. It is by aligning ourselves to God’s love that we align ourselves to how creation actually works. This alignment is the foundation stone of faith.

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love." Galatians 5:6

The statement that neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything tells us that there is no system of man, no natural order that has any significance in the realm of reality that is based upon God’s love.

In man’s worldly system we are prone to polarization. We are addicted to being right. This addiction causes us to always try to find agreement with our perspective. The world teaches us to separate from those who disagree with us. These belief platforms become a substitute for true faith. They have the external appearance of being “faith-based” but in actual fact are nothing more than systems of religion. Even science that claims to be based on facts, often only allows facts that align with its conclusions. They argue for a methodology that they exalt called the placebo, double-blind form of research which is supposed to minimize or eradicate experimenter bias. Yet it is itself the most extreme form of experimenter bias in its reliance on isolated variables that are not actually in that form in a love-based universe.

God is love. Aligning with God is aligning with Love. The Apostle John put it this way:

"but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:" 1 John 2:5

God’s love is perfect. It is the only true love in existence. His love is sacrifice. God loves us so He sacrificed His only Son. The term “keeping His word” is a term of sacrifice. We sacrifice our “rights” our perspective for His perspective. Yeshua was and is eternally God’s word. He lived as the Word made flesh. In that way, Yeshua is the expressed image of the Father. He is God’s perspective. God sacrificed that image, that perspective for us. He didn’t abolish or change His Word. No! He sacrificed it. He didn’t stop being right and the death of Yeshua didn’t mean that God sinned. No! He sacrificed His perspective, His claim on our sin. He was right in judging us but He sacrificed His rights. Can you see it???

He asks us to do the same. He asks us to sacrifice our perspective, our need to be right, our rights in the situation of our lives. This He calls dying to gain eternal life.

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

The gain Paul is talking about is the increase of spiritual power that comes from aligning with God’s love. The Christ we live in isn’t just about Jesus but also about the anointing, which is what the word Christ means. The true anointing of God, the unction to function is activated through sacrifice, the releasing of our rights for the life of another.

This is called first love.

"We love, because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19

First isn’t just a time statement. First is a statement of priority. We say, “do this first”. In other words, what we do first is what’s most important.

Yeshua first loved us. This means we are His priority. Before He did anything else in the universe He loved us.

"All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:8

Sacrifice is a foundation stone of reality. He sacrificed Himself for us before all was created. Why? Because He is Love and love is revealed in sacrifice. When we give up our rights, our addiction to being justified in our actions, then active forgiveness and release the Kingdom of God into our lives.

This is what is meant by first love. Let’s look at Revelations 2:

""To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, 'These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: "I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name's sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Revelation 2:1-6

The first love and the first works are what we will need in the hours ahead. The deeds of the Nicolaitans are the imposition of standards of righteousness to impose control over the behaviors of members of the church. It was an easy trap for the zealous Ephesians who hated evil as does the Lord. But even our hatred of evil, when it causes us to lose our first love destroys the fabric of the gospel. It isn’t that abortion and other destructive ills of modern society are OK with God. No! Never!

No, it’s that first love is the greater that contains the lesser. It is the preeminence of the love of God that has the power to transform our world.

When we use our own standards of righteousness, the determination of what is good or evil, true that it may be, we only have the power of our convictions. This is like lifting a heavy load with just our arms. When we go beyond our convictions to love, then we engage the power of God. Our whole heart is now aligned with His heart which is love. It isn’t that we stop hating evil, or that we avoid speaking against evil. No, it’s that our love is the motivator versus our hatred. You cannot build on a negative, even a true one. We cannot build on the hatred of sin. We need to build on the love of God and of our fellow man, even those lost in sin.

Activation: Repent and turn back to love. It's time to ask God to see our enemies through the eyes of love, to hate the sin but to follow the more excellent way of love!!

"But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:2

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