When love grows cold

Among Jesus' warnings about the last days is one that describes a spiritual danger of every age: because lawlessness will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold. Notice the verb — not collapse, not die, but grow cold, the way embers that were once blazing slowly lose their heat when no one tends the fire. It is one of the saddest phrases in Scripture, and one of the easiest to live out.

The enemy is patient with this strategy. He knows that few devout souls will suddenly abandon their love for God in a dramatic moment; far more will simply let it cool by inches, distracted, discouraged, hardened a little by the surrounding coldness, until the warmth they once knew is only a memory. The love does not vanish overnight. It just slowly stops being warm, while the outward forms of faith continue unchanged.

The risen Christ named this very thing in the church at Ephesus: I have this against you, that you have left your first love. They were busy, orthodox, hardworking — and cold, the fire of their first love gone out beneath the activity. The remedy is to notice the cooling before it is complete, and to deliberately stir the embers back to flame. Has the warmth of your love for God quietly cooled while the forms of your faith carried on unchanged?

Few souls lose their love for God in a single dramatic moment. Far more common is the slow cooling — the gradual loss of warmth that Jesus warned of, as the surrounding coldness, the accumulated discouragements, and the simple passage of unattended time let the once-blazing fire sink to embers. And the cruelest part is how easily it hides, because the outward forms of faith continue even after the warmth is gone.

This is one of the enemy's quietest victories: not to make you abandon God, but to let your love for him cool by imperceptible degrees while you remain busy and orthodox, like the Ephesians who had left their first love without leaving their religion. The remedy is to notice the cooling and tend the fire deliberately — to return to the practices and memories that first kindled love, and stir the embers back to flame. Has the heat of your love for God quietly faded while everything else carried on?