… for thy love is better than wine. [S.S. 1:2b]

Wine is anything that we believe can cheer us (Judge 9:13). Let’s look at different kinds of wine that may be found in our lives.

LUST WINE: When the flesh craves the sinful desires and is drawn to the flashy attraction of the world, then lust-wine takes over our life.  We believe the lie of the devil over the truth of the Lord.  We have a hard time seeing that sin is not to our advantage.  We think that God cannot handle our happiness.  We feel that He is an old grumpy Person who doesn’t let His children have fun.  Even when one becomes aware of the devastating effect of lust-wine, one cannot do anything about it for we are helpless on our own.  That is how lust-wine becomes a nuisance to our growth in His grace.  It becomes a distraction to our maturity.  That is a bondage that calls for freedom.

WANT WINE: When our dreams and ambitions are boundless, and we want everything that comes our way, thus want-wine takes over our hearts.  The dreams and ambitions are carnal in nature with only “self” in the picture.  Talk about God is only to silence the inner voice.  We are obsessed to make this ambition a reality.  We come under its control with no room for the heavenly.  We are deceived, for it doesn’t look like sin – at least on the surface.  We manage to convince ourselves that it is His will and press on to convince Him too.  We can’t let Him have His way in our life.  Rather we try to push Him hard to meet our selfish desires by any means. This way want wine keeps us in bondage unless we are set free.

NEED WINE:  When we fear and worry concerning our needs regardless of the promises in His Word, the need-wine takes over our hearts.  The marvelous faithfulness of the Lord and the repeated great miracles of God in the past seem not to matter for the situation at hand.  The enemy happens to get away with his lies.  With the need-wine in charge, we become obsessed by it.  We play the “what if?” magic game – never to win.  We think we must have the things to get over the anxiety.  In doing so, we miss the real solution: to just be with the Lord.

… for thy love is better than wine. [S.S. 1:2b]

More than the actual event, the motive is crucial to ascertain its value.  It is the motive that gets into the root and reveals the real substance.  We may speak right, dream right, act right and fool others, including ourselves.  Yet, when the Lord sees deep through the motions, He might see everything wrapped up by self.  Therefore, anything of such value needs its motive scrutinized.

Here we see the first motive: for His love is better than wine.  Now it has become clear to her that His love is better in every way than wine.  Wine is anything that we believe can cheer us (Judge 9:13). 

There are lots of distractions that keep one from a genuine love relationship and deeper walk with the Lord.  Loving the Lord requires loving with all heart, all soul, and all mind (Mat 22:37). It necessitates the whole faculties of the person wherein each faculty being fully engaged in loving our heavenly Father first (Mat 6:33).  But there are bondages that immobilize one to commit into deeper walk with the Lord to such an extent.  That is why the adventurous love journey needs to commence with freedom from all limitations. 

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth  [S.S. 1:2a]

Let’s pray that our love be profound enough to transform our life in every aspect.  Let’s move from prayer where we want something from Him, to worship and adoration.  Let the object of prayer be not we, but He.  He should be the focus of our attention.  Let’s also advance from a relationship to the dynamic state of communion.  Let’s seek Him with a prayer about Him.  We need to lessen seeking the things of Him and shift the focus to seeking Him.  The wisdom is to go after Him and to hunger for more of Him with an ever-increasing measure.  Remember that we excel in life by falling in His love and living His love at a deeper level.

Notice that she is not satisfied with just one kiss.  The kiss-and-ride kind of kiss is not the issue here.  She wants the kind where one has to take time.  She is praying for kisses – kiss after kiss.  That is, she longs to be totally absorbed by Him, more importantly all the time.

We may be tempted to settle with only old love memories we had in time past with our Lord.  That is not the normal Christian life.  As we follow her in the book of Song of Songs, she leaps from one love experience into a more glorious love experience.  Yes, temporal setbacks are a fact of life she is not exempt as we all are.  However, she doesn’t stop growing in His love and deepening her relationship with the Lord.  She is into the love journey of a lifetime.  She commits her will into loving and knowing Him more and more for the rest of her life on continuous basis.  Why is she in so much love and in need of Him?  Why did she not pray for stuff instead?  Fortunately, she didn’t leave us in the dark, as she explains next which will be our discussion for next week.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth  [S.S. 1:2a]

There is only one who is the most excellent and singular Person in the entire universe.  Since He has no match or equal, there is no need to mention His name.  The same thing happened to Mary (John 20:15).  He is not one among many alternatives.  He is not one of the solutions.  There is no ambiguity for there is only one of Him: But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. (1 Co 8:6).

We find different kinds of kisses corresponding to different dynamics of love.  At this time, she longs for the kiss of the mouth.  Let’s see the two types of kisses she already has been experiencing and the new kiss that is sought now.

KISS 1: The father kisses the neck of the prodigal son, which shows acceptance (Luke 15:20).  This kind of kiss allows one to kiss and the other to be kissed.  Love flows from Him to her.  The kiss here is about forgiveness.  She was kissed on the neck the first time she came to Him.  And to this day, she is continuously kissed to assure her that the sin problem is solved once for all.  That He is her advocate and not a prosecutor (1 John 1:7).

KISS 2: Mary kissed the feet of Jesus, which depicts adoration and gratitude (Luke 7:38).  Here the love dynamics remains the same in that it is a unidirectional flow.  Now love flows from her to Him.  Out of the love she received from Him, she offers back to Him.  She has been grateful for His provisions, protections, and blessings.  She has been moved by His mercy and grace.  As a result, she has been kissing His feet.

KISS 3: She is familiar with yet another kind of kiss – a more glorious kiss.  The kiss of the mouth is where both can kiss at the same time.  It is a bidirectional love flow.  The previous two kisses are possible through a relationship she acquired by being born of God and calling Him Father.  It is a static love dynamics that points to her position in Christ.  Now, in the latter third kind of kiss, the relationship leaps into fellowship and communion and is no more static but points to the dynamic daily experience of living out His life as a child of God.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth  [S.S. 1:2a]

We observe the opening of the text being prayer.  Prayer by itself is precious.  When the prayer is about Him and His love, it is exceptional.  Here we see her first prayer being the kiss, which shows her foremost fervent desire for Him.  

Let’s pause for a moment and ponder our prayer life.  What is the depth and breadth of our prayer life?  What significance does it has among the many aspects of our spiritual life?  What is the type and content of our prayer?  What is at the top of our prayer list?  With that in mind, let’s look at her prayer in detail.

She prays with the awareness that He is the Master and her will is subjected to His will.  To this effect, she prays by saying, “let him”.  It is a prayer that gives freedom for Him to act as He wishes.  It is not a demand or a request out of ignorance on her part.  She is not attempting to force her will onto Him.  That is why she just plainly makes her request known to Him.

She also prays with an understanding that it is His will.  The Lord is more than eager to impart His life and pour His love upon her.  It doesn’t require any labor on her part.  It’s His utmost desire to fellowship in love with her.  She doesn’t need to wrestle with Him in this kind of prayer.  It only requires the heart that longs for the Lord.           

We need to understand that it is His pleasure to impart His life and love in us.  Actually, I can go one step further and say that He has been waiting for this moment all along, all the time we ignored Him and were busy in the things of the world.  He was there waiting. Now and then we called upon His name to fulfill our selfish desires.  He didn’t mind hoping that we would come around for Him.  When we finally have a heart that hungers for His face, He is pleased because He knows He Himself is what truly satisfies our soul.  

In this blog series, we will study the deeper walk depicted in the Song of Songs 1:2-2:7.  In our study, we draw life applications from the text and reflect on what it means to grow in love with Him.  May the Holy Spirit open our eyes to see the glory of the Lord unknown to us from afar.

The Song of Songs describes a deeper love relationship of a believer with the Lord.  It paints a passionate love life of the blessed with the Lord.  This is about love beyond salvation.  It refers to a deeper love where a believer matures enough to become under the authority of the Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is such love that is the very fabric of the manifestations of maturity and growth in Him.

In this glorious love dynamics, we see that the journey commences with a sweet freedom from all the distractions that keep us from being focused on Him.  This freedom brings us into more intimacy with the Lord.  In such intimacy, we have experiential awareness of brokenness and divine touch.  Through it all, God realizes His purpose to change us into the likeness of His Son.  That undoubtedly brings us into His abundant life.  Let’s read prayerfully and marvel at His love as never before.

“I would satisfy you with honey from the rock” Psalm 81:16

It is understandable to experience the human condition of wanting more. As we grow in the Lord; however, we need to come to a place where we are contented and more importantly satisfied in Him and Him alone.

The Lord has told us that He has come to give us life – more abundantly (John 10:10). Before we run with this promise and strive to gain more stuff, let us pause and see what kind of life He is talking about. He notes that the life – abundant life – is Jesus Christ Himself (John 11:25; 14:6).

When we fall in love with Him, satisfaction becomes the norm. Our inner being rejoices in Him for who He is. Once we are lost in Him, rest assured that whatever we do, relate, have or be is also anointed to bring full satisfaction to our soul. Let us turn our eyes from futile busyness and focus on our Rock – the beloved Lord from whom all blessings flow.

Listen to Him! Matthew 17:5 b

There are many voices that try to grab our attention and dictate the way we should go about in our lives.  That includes our own voice that comes out of fear, insecurity, and anxiety.  Then deep inside, there comes a small soft voice from the Holy Spirit. Now there is where our deeper walk with God begins: first in the hearing – way before the walking.

Our walk is a function of the direction we choose based on the voices we hear.  Unless we are broken and lose confidence in everything but Him, the Holy Spirit’s voice goes unnoticed.  The clarity and sensibility of the His voice depends on our relationship with Him, the value we place on Him to be our sole guide and the trust level we have in Him that dampens all the other noises.

We list several exhaustive lists of options from which to choose, when in fact the Holy Spirit has something that is not on the list of our possible scenarios.  How many times we find His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are totally the opposite from our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8)?

Our deeper walk with God begins with practicing to humbly listen Him and Him alone.  Filtering out all the noises in our lives to listen His still small voice is the order of the day for us to be successful in the walking.  His voice at times may not make sense but it surely brings life and blessings if we seek it and embrace it at all costs.

And yet shew I unto you a more excellent way 1 Corinthians 12:31b KJV

Deeper walk with God is simply a walk in love (Ephesian 5:2).  Everything else springs out from the context of LOVE. Love is what keeps every aspect of our lives together and enables us to function in excellence.

When Scripture attempted to express God in a word, it chose to use a four-letter word: God is LOVE (1 John 4:7). When Jesus Christ summarized all the commandments in a word, it is boils down to LOVE (Mark 12:30,31).

Having great spiritual gifts, exercising mighty faith, giving away everything we have or even sacrificing to the point of death amounts to nothing with out LOVE (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). The truth that sets us free needs to be spoken in LOVE (Ephesian 4:15). We turn to LOVE to banish fear from our lives (1 John 4:18). Jesus declared the mark of His disciples is just LOVE (John 13:35). There is no end to the role LOVE plays in our walk with God.

The LOVE of Christ passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). We can’t know or say enough in our lifetime.  It requires eternity to unravel the mystery of LOVE. And that is what our eternal life is for. As to the present, we still pray that we know the love of Christ that we might be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).