"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"

In 1965 the Righteous Brothers released a song by the same name as this article. In it, the singer’s love interest was not showing the same affection toward him as she used to, and had even become aggravated by the things that he did. Anything that this woman felt for her man had diminished to the point of apathy and annoyance. There was no longer a mutual feeling of love for one another. Many of us will or have experienced this at some point in our lives, whether we were the loved or the loveless one. This happens many times among teenagers who mistake infatuation, or desire, for true love. This can even happen to us as Christians in our relationship with God. We start out our Christian lives energized over our recent baptism, ready to save the world, then somewhere along the way we get sidetracked. It may be disillusionment with other Christians, a tragedy in our lives, or maybe just the passing of time with no other major spiritual stimulant that has caused our love for God to grow dim. This can cause us to become apathetic toward worship and unsatisfied with our lives. So what is there to do?

The Problem

“I know there is a God, but my love for Him has faded and so my faith is suffering.” The motivation that drives us to whatever it is that we do has to come from somewhere. If we have no love for God, then what is there to make us want to give our best in worship to Him, or even worship Him at all? The most common problem that almost all Christians have is that after worship or Bible class is over we go back to our homes and our jobs and forget about God the rest of the week. Not that we are bad people and suddenly become worldly after services are over, but the things of this world take the preeminent spot in our lives. Things like work, family, bills, etc..., and we put God way down on the list until Sunday comes back around, then we push Him back to the front for a few hours. The problem is, most of the time, God is not first in our lives. We are told, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt. 22:37-38). This tells us that we are to love God with everything that we have in us. There is no possible way that we can do that if He is not first in our lives. So many times we are raised to be self sufficient, self supporting, and independent; we take passages on work and supporting our families (2 Thes. 3:10; 1 Tim. 5:8), and make them the focus of all that we do. Supporting our families is very important, but we must realize that all that we have, from our jobs to our families come from God in the first place. When we put these things before God, yes even our once spouses and children, then our lives will not be what they could be, what they ought to be. The root of the problem for those that have lost love for God is that they are not putting Him first and foremost in their lives.

The Consequences

What happens when we put ourselves, others, or other things before God? God told the children of Israel several times that they were not to worship other gods or make for themselves idols to worship for he is jealous for them. “For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex. 34:14). From the time that Moses lead God’s people out of the land of Egypt, the Israelites were forevermore falling away from the one true God, and going after the gods of the foreign nations surrounding them. Everything from plagues to famine befell these people and yet they would turn back to God only long enough for life to become good again before they would go back to their sinful ways. It seemed that whenever things were good, it was because their own hard work and because they deserved it. When things were bad, it was God’s fault, or the sins of their parents (Jer. 31:29), or anyone or anything else that could be blamed, but certainly not them. They were innocent! Looking back at that time in history, we can see many parallels with how we are today. “Look at me, look at what I have done what I have achieved, but God, why did you let all of these bad things happen?” Many times we come to think that our success is totally of our own making, and that God really had nothing to do with any of it. James tells us that, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (Jas. 1:17). If God is not first and foremost in our lives then at the very least we will not truly be fulfilled. It is my firm opinion that much of depression and things like mid-life crisis stem from God not being head in our lives. If we do not think we need God, how then could we even really come to know Him and love Him?

Solution

“Many times He delivered them; But they rebelled in their counsel, And were brought low for their iniquity. Nevertheless He regarded their affliction, When He heard their cry; And for their sake He remembered His covenant, And relented according to the multitude of His mercies. He also made them to be pitied By all those who carried them away captive. Save us, O LORD our God, And gather us from among the Gentiles, To give thanks to Your holy name, To triumph in Your praise” (Ps. 106:43-47). To get His chosen people to listen to Him, God would allow the Israelites to be brought low, either by an invading people, plague, drought or some other form of disaster so that they would realize that they truly needed Him. Sometimes it takes us being brought low, brought to the point that we can no longer rely on ourselves to realize that we do need God. It need not be that we should be brought low by God, we should realize our need for Him without that. We can put aside our pride, and humble ourselves so that we might come to know that we do need God. We have all heard that we are to “give ourselves to God,” but what does that mean? It means putting God first before anything else; it means that we come to the realization that we do need Him, and we are not truly self-sufficient in every facet of our life. We must put our Creator, the one true and living God, the One who provides for us in all we do at the head of our lives. We will not ever be able to love a God that we feel we do not need, that we put after our work, family, and lives, that we give no more time to than two or three hours a week.