“That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:17)

Saints need to have a moment-by-moment relationship with Christ to maintain their first love. I hope everyone who reads this is headed for an Advanced Degree in Biblical Study, but to maintain intimacy with Christ, your heart must be full of Him, welling up with His love, as the Apostle Paul prayed, "that Christ may dwell in your hearts."

You can’t get closer to someone than in your heart. “That Christ may dwell”; not that He may call upon you sometimes, as a casual visitor enters into a house and tarries for a night, but that He may dwell; that Christ may become the Lord and Master of your innermost being, never to leave.

Observe the words - that He may dwell in your heart, the best room of your house; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not merely in your mind's meditations, but in your heart's emotions. “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God” (Psalms 42:1).
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Our love should be a constant flame, fed by sacred fuel, like the fire upon the altar which never went out. This can’t be accomplished except by faith. Faith must be strong, or love will not be fervent. Faith is the root, and love is the plant which bears the fruit. If the love of God doesn’t motivate your walk, “examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? - unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Faith without love is a rudderless ship adrift on an ocean of confusion. “Faith working through love” is the missing faculty of ineffective Christians (Galatians 5:6). If your love is lukewarm, “remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works” (Revelation 2:4).