Wed, 23 May 2012 06:26:03 -0500WeeblyWed, 23 May 2012 09:15:45 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/05/deeper-walk-the-second-motive-part-1.html Because of the savor of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. [S.S. 1:3]

The first motive for His love is related to what He means to her.  She compared Him with wine and found Him more appealing to her.  Now, there is no comparison. She has yet a deeper reason for wanting His love – that is for being who He is.  Yes, loving Him for who He is.

This requires looking beyond what He has done.  It deals with the source of His motivation, the mechanics of His action, and the essence of His Personhood.  It addresses the reason why He desires the way He desires, the logic of why He acts the way He acts.  Why?  The answer to that question reveals the motive for her love.

If we take time to study His name, we would notice that He is what His name says.  Many people have names with no apparent deeds to support it.  For Jesus, His name represents Himself.  The name tells who He is.

We call Him Jesus for being our Savior; we call Him Emmanuel for He is God that dwells among us; we call Him prince of peace for He gives peace unlike the world gives; we call Him Everlasting Father for He has no beginning and end; we call Him Christ for He is the anointed One; and on and on.

These names are not mere titles. Rather, they communicate to us what he Himself is. His name stands for His attributes, words, works, and being. This is He. In reality, words cannot truly describe Him for He is indescribable. With all the limitation of our vocabulary, His name is Himself and His realities words attempt to describe. This Person is broken for us to become anointment poured forth.

All the ointments the high priests used in the Old Testament were shadows of the ointment that has been realized in Jesus Christ. Christ means ‘anointed one’ in Hebrew. The ointment was poured forth for the whole world when Christ the Word became flesh and died on the cross at Calvary. The Promise, which had been told for ages, was finally realized in Him.
]]>Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:11:26 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/04/deeper-walk-the-supremacy-of-his-love.html … for thy love is better than wine. [S.S. 1:2b]

This doesn’t mean ignoring or neglecting our needs.  It does not mean that we do not pray for our needs either.  The issue is whether or not the need-wine is holding our heart.  Are we caught up by our needs?  Is it hard for us to rest in Him and get our minds off the needs?  Do we want His will above all, whatever that may mean?  Would we still mature in His Kingdom, fulfilling His purpose on this earth – no matter what?  Is Jesus the One we absolutely and definitely must be in touch with to stay in His will?  If our answer is no, then the need-wine has power over our life, and we are in bondage.

She is in perfect freedom from the bondages of wine.  She says that His love is better than wine in any one of the three manifestations.  When she tries to reach for His love, she is actually reaching for Him.  The Word says: for God is love (1 John 4:8b).  His love, Himself, surpasses anything she could possibly imagine.  As a result, she is totally free and is in love with Him.  Nothing matters to her apart from Him.  For her, His love is exceedingly excellent.  All she could think is Him and His love – nothing else matters as such.

When we are immersed in His love, then life is not able to threaten us.  We can focus on the author of love and push the wine – even the need-wine aside.  Then things can happen.  We just don’t care anymore.  We are into Him.  The need-wine and want-wine are just additions that the Lord bestows on us – In His time.

Living for wine is living for a goal.  Wine is always our goal in one form or another, only to lose its appeal when we get there.  Let’s start living for His love.  That way, we will live to enjoy the process.  We don’t postpone our joy until sometime in the future.  Rather, we enjoy Him in time now, which is more exhilarating and cheering.

His love is of great value.  Its profound fulfilling effect is long lasting.  He is worthy of our love.  So let’s go for the love.  If we do that, we soon find Him as the most ravishing and sweet Person.  Let the Holy Spirit help us grasp the worthlessness of wine – only then can we be free to reach out and touch Him.  And want His kiss.  And have Him – at last.
]]>Sat, 24 Mar 2012 07:03:27 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/03/deeper-walk-love-distractions.html … 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.
]]>Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:20:05 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/03/deeper-walk-freedom-to-love.html … 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. 

]]>Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:39:19 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/02/as-good-as-it-gets.htmlOh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! Psalm 31:19 KJV

We may come to see His goodness in our lives and say this is as good as it get. But really, is that all there is to it? Can we come to a place where we exhaust God's goodness and expect to go down the hill from there?

God's goodness stored up for those who fear Him is infinite. We never deplete it in our short life span. Even eternity will never exhaust His goodness.  For a Christian, today is  better than yesterday; and tomorrow is better than today. Every morning brings with itself brand new mercy, grace and blessings. When we say as good as it gets, God says: you have not seen yet!

The greatest blessing is knowing God and His love. That by itself is a never ending journey into eternity.  God's glory is new every morning. It is a glorious journey wherein God keeps revealing Himself more and more and we keep falling down in awe of Him. ]]>Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:24:35 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/02/what-is-our-food.htmlMy food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work John 4:34 NAS

We do so many things to get satisfied in life.  We labor and exhaust ourselves to have meaning and purpose. We are on a constant struggle to make sense of living in a world that is full of pain and suffering. We turn to vanity to get pleasure and satisfaction.

The soul is crying to accomplish her purpose. The thing that nourishes our soul is doing the will of God. Until we get this and turn around our life to relentlessly do His will, we never get satisfied. 

It is not the doing that makes the difference. It is the journey we make with God as co-worker in His kingdom. It is the fellowship and union with Christ that makes doing His will such a transforming lifestyle. ]]>Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:18:19 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/01/stay-focused-on-jesus-christ.htmlAnd she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, Luke 10:39,40a KJV

Sometimes the very thing that distract us from our Lord Jesus Christ is a good thing by itself. Serving the Lord is noble. It is our life's purpose for which we are called. We rejoice serving the Lord who means everything to us. But at what expense?

God wants us to serve Him by drawing the power from Him. Our union with Christ is the power that needs to fuel our service. But we get caught up with the task of doing things, we forget all that. We forget the most important thing is to continue resting under His feet.

When the task at hand is disrupting our fellowship with the Lord, we need to pause and ask ourselves: are we doing the things we do for ourselves or the Lord? If it is service for the Lord - then let Him shine. Let your vision be only Him. ]]>Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:27:58 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/01/deeper-walk-in-love-with-the-lord.html 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.
]]>Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:37:47 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/01/deeper-walk-the-dynamics-of-loving-god.html 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.
]]>Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:51:15 -0500http://www.deeperwalkwithgod.com/1/post/2012/01/deeper-walk-prayer-for-deeper-love1.htmlLet 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.  
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