Oh 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.

My 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.

And 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.

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.

What a joy to finish strong! Great is His faithfulness! Treasure Him!

Simply praise …

Celebrate the Lord for taking us this far, we are almost there!
Simply worship ...

I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. Psalm 116:1,2 KJV

Now that we are approaching the end of our Daniel Fast, it is time to praise Him for who He is and all He has done for us. Make these last days count in the areas of praise and worship.

Therefore I say unto you, all thing soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark 11:24 KJV