On Sunday, I shared about a spiritual dry season I endured several years back and a book that was sent to me at a pivotal time to bring me out of it. Numerous people have asked me for the title. It was The Dangers of A Shallow Faith: Awakening From Spiritual Lethargy by A.W. Tozer.
To the church in Ephesus the Lord wrote in Revelation 2:4-5: …you have left the love you had at the first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. That first sentence so perfectly describes what each of us have experienced. During low seasons, it is as if the love we once had for the Lord is gone. The prescription is simple. First, we must recognize from where we have fallen. We had a vibrant love for the Lord, but for whatever reason, we abandoned it. Second, we must repent. Turn from this wandering. Third, we must go back to the basics. Gazing at the gospel. Believing in Jesus. Reveling in His love. Praying. Reading His Word.
If the root issue during times of dryness is that our love has grown cold, then 1 John 4:19 is instructive, “We love because He first loved us.” His love causes our love. The Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote this: “As when things are cold we bring them to the fire to heat and melt, so bring we our hearts to the fire of the love of Christ; consider we of our sins against Christ, and of Christ’s love towards us… Think what great love Christ hath showed unto us, and how little we have deserved, and this will make our hearts to melt, and be as pliable as wax before the sun.”
How is love for Jesus rekindled? In the warmth of meditation on His love for us. So I turned off as many of the distractions in my life as I possibly could and set aside large portions of time to spend with the Lord. I spent time reading, meditating on, and praying through every passage I could find that expounded the love of Jesus. While respecting their context, I personalized them, understanding each text to pertain directly to Jesus’ love for me. Some of these passages include: John 13-17, Ephesians 3:18-19, Romans 8:35-39, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, Psalm 136, Galatians 3:29, John 10:11-15, Ephesians 5:2, 2 Thessalonians 3:5, Psalm 116:7.
I also worked my way slowly through the Gospels, looked at His every act of love and ministry, and personalized them. I was the leper, tainted by sin…and He touched me and made me clean. I was the unworthy Canaanite woman, the lame man at the pool of Bethesda, the man born blind, Peter who denied Him and was restored. Days and hours of this meditation and prayer re-kindled the fire in my heart for the Lord Jesus. It was a wonderful rescue from a terrible wilderness.
If you are in a dry season, you would likely be helped by the Tozer book and I do recommend it, but you will still be in the dry season. Only fellowship with Jesus will bring you out. Press into Him and His love in the gospel.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35-39)
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