Do you remember when you got saved, baptized with the Holy Spirit, fire in your veins, passion in your heart, willing to leave it all for the sake of the call? It is summer and many youth will be going to camp, they will come back fired up to do the work of the ministry, the call of God on their life. There is something about being set apart without the distractions of the internet, cell phones, iPads, social media or even television. It focuses them on who they are called to be.

Getting saved is like our first camp meeting, where we meet Jesus and we fall in love and honestly, nothing else matters. Then we, proverbially, come off the mountain and come back into what some call reality. Our flame fades, our hearts harden and our desires wane. Those who once were sold out are not burnt out. Where we once only loved people, we now distance ourselves from them.

How does this happen? What lures us away so easily? How does deception creep in and create a stronghold that hinders us not helps us? Ezekiel calls it idolatry. But that word does not resonate with us modern people, yet it carries the same issue, something other than God Himself has got our attention. It happens in the priesthood and the neighborhood.

Ezekiel 44:14-15 says, “They are to serve as the Temple caretakers, taking charge of the maintenance work and performing general duties. However, the Levitical priests of the family of Zadok continued to minister faithfully in the Temple when Israel abandoned me for idols. These men will serve as my ministers. They will stand in my presence.”

When we abandon the Lord for idols we end up doing the work of maintaining general duties, not ministering to the Lord in His presence. Practical takes the place of supernatural and then we normalize it and wonder why we are bored, angry, disconnected and lost.

Friends, hear the words of John the apostle in Revelation 2, “I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first.” God is calling us back to love for God and for people. There is no shame, but there is a call to return to our first love. Love is an energy gainer, not an energy drainer. Return to your first love is the cry in the spirit. Www.apostolicresourcecenter.org