Though He Slay Me
January 3, 2022
Though He Slay Me
Job 13:15
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
This is for those who are walking through the dark places of the shadow of death, of testing and trials. Many have good intentions of encouraging us or helping us understand that place, but how can they unless they are where you are and face the fears and the terrors that you face. The two things that you have, that you are holding on too with all your strength, are your physical life and your faith in the eternal life. When death, hell and the grave rise up to daily confront us, then all the foundations of faith in God are shaken as it attacks in its pain and fears to separate us, condemn us and crush that hope within. It can bring us to even despair of this physical life, until all we want to do is give up, let go of it and sleep.
Know this; you are not in this place to fail and be defeated, but to triumph through the Resurrection Life within you. “For the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you! Romans 8:11 declares to us, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Wrap your arms of faith and hope around the promises of God and refuse to let go. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward [man] is renewed day by day.” The outward man isn’t our strength, it isn’t our hope and it is but the container of the Life out of which we live. Our life is so much more than even physical life. Job had a revelation of this. He knew that as long as he maintained his integrity and hope in God, then even the grave itself could not defeat or rob him. It was only if he gave up on God and turned his back on the faith that the enemy could triumph. This is the hope resident in you that is greater than life itself, because it lives beyond this present physical life. Fear and death may try and wrest it from your hand, but whatever else happens let us all go to the grave with our faith and hope in God intact. Meanwhile fight the good fight. Don’t allow condemnation to come in through thoughts or other individuals, for God isn’t here to condemn you. If you have been washed in the blood of the Lamb then no accuser has grounds to tell you that you are worthless or deserving of what you are enduring. Your life is hid with Christ in God. The devil and hell itself will have to come through God to get to you. You are His. He redeemed you with the precious price of His blood and you are forever precious in His sight, for you are His possession.
Rest in Him. You are weary in the battle. Your strength is gone. So, rest in Him who is your strength; rest in Him who is your life. Enter into the Christ within; make your abiding and fellowship there. The Lord wants to lift you above your circumstances today and invite you into the garden of His presence and life. There you will find rest and refreshment; hope and faith. There you will rise up to be more than a conquer through Christ who has loved you, for there is nothing that can separate you from His love. He is your refuge, your high tower, your shield and buckler. It is the Lion of Judah that has come forth in His holy raiment to fight your battles and triumph through you. Though the outward man is frail and weak, let the inward man wax stronger and stronger through faith, having your eyes fixed on Him who is your life and the reason you live and move and have your being. Everything else is a name whether it is cancer, disease, poverty, afflictions, sickness, infirmities, trial, persecutions or tribulations, but there is a name above every name and HIS NAME IS JESUS! He is your hope! Your hope is not in man, medicines, finances, or in the technological abilities and provisions of this world; it is still only and forever in Jesus.
Rest your life upon His breast. Let go of all your fears and concerns. Christ is your rest. He is your life and your victory remains your hope in Him.
Blessings,
#kent
Hope Deferred
November 2, 2016
Hope Deferred
Proverbs 13:12
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but [when] the desire cometh, [it is] a tree of life.
Have you ever hoped and prayed for something that seemed like it would never come to pass? I think we all have hoped in such a way and we probably still are. It is hope that compels us in life. The Word says we were birthed in hope. Psalms 22:9 says, “But thou [art] he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope [when I was] upon my mother’s breasts.” God instilled a hope within us. It is in the knowledge of God and His Word that we have hope. We stand upon the promises of God, faith being the substance of our hope. It is faith and hope that bond us to our God. Psalms 33:18 expresses, “Behold, the eye of the LORD [is] upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.”
If we were all honest we would probably admit that there are times when our hope and our faith run thin. There are times when all of the odds seem to be against us and there is no hope in sight. We begin to question and then to doubt. The heartbeat of our hope becomes shallow and weak. We faint because it seems we have endured so long without beholding the substance and if the substance of faith fails to stand in the gap of that which we believe for then hope begins to fail us. In these times we must encourage our souls even as King David did on more than one occasion. Several times He speaks this scripture including Psalms 42:11, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, [who is] the health of my countenance, and my God.” He often encouraged his own soul not to lose hope by such words as Psalms 71:5 and 14, “For thou [art] my hope, O Lord GOD: [thou art] my trust from my youth.” “But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.” It was the encouragement of praise that He used to encourage his waning soul back into the position of faith and hope.
Romans 5 teaches us that hope isn’t something we often realize right away it, but it is something that we believe so strongly in that we won’t give up. Verses 1-5 teach us, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Everything around us and the circumstances in the natural can testify against our hope in God’s Word, but we know that ‘God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent. Has he said and shall He not do it or has He spoken and shall He not make it good (Numbers 23:19)?’ Against all odds never lose your hope and confidence in God. We may not understand His hand or His ways, but we can trust His heart and His Word will not fail. Our hope isn’t in this life and the linear matter of time, it is in the eternal and the everlasting God, Lord and Savior that has called us to salvation and eternal hope. Paul makes this statement about this present time and age in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” Things are quite likely to be very rough at times in this life, but it is not in this life that we hope, it is in the life of Christ that transcends time and space. Philippians 1:20 also states, “According to my earnest expectation and [my] hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but [that] with all boldness, as always, [so] now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether [it be] by life, or by death.”
Don’t attach your hopes to this life, but put it in the one who is life. Hope that is prolonged does make our heart sick and it is often hard to hold on too, but when the desire and the fulfillment of it comes, it is a tree of life; even the very life of Christ made manifest.
Blessings,
#kent
How Great is Your Vision
October 22, 2015
Mark 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things [are] possible to him that believeth.
How Great is Your Vision
Our natural circumstances and surroundings often dictate what we can see and believe for. If our circumstances are less than perfect it can affect the way we feel and then our feelings dictate what we perceive our world to be. Before long we may find ourselves murmuring, complaining and doubting. We can become despondent, cynical and critical. Through these we open the door to fear, because fear is the absence of faith. For many of us, it is time that we get our head out of the sand and look up. If your perspective is always looking down or just seeing what you don’t have then you will always see life from a negative point of view. The one thing that God has given mankind is hope. It is faith to believe in the things that we don’t yet see. This is a day to increase your vision beyond what you can see. You can’t have what you can’t see, but if you can see it, then all things are possible to him that believes. These are the words of Jesus, not me. There is a vision of the natural man that sees only through natural eyes, in real time, the world around him. We also have another set of eyes. It is our mind’s eye. It is what we can see beyond ourselves and the current state of affairs. This is why it is so important to be constant in reading and studying God’s Word, because it gives us the mind of Christ and gives to us a heavenly hope and vision. Romans 10: 17 says, “So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” I would be in the greatest place of despair if I really believed that all I had to hope in was myself. I know my frailties and how weak I am, but my hope is not in me, it is in the One that I have placed my faith and trust in. I marvel at where He has brought me, what He has done for me and given me. I really can’t glory in that, because I know in my heart where it came from. The glory can only go to God. Our pastor shared that once when he had prayed to God and asked if he could have something or if it was possible, the Lord spoke to him and said, “Can you see it? If you can see it you can have it.” Most often our greatest limitation is our natural mind and thinking. God’s Word shows us that with the life of the Spirit in us we have the energy and the dynamite of God to carry out His will and purpose. The Word says in Romans 8:31-32, “…If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” You see it doesn’t matter what we go through or what circumstances that we find ourselves in, our hope is not in ourselves, it is in Him. Even in those darkest of hours, His presence is with you rather you can feel it or not. You know that because His promises say so and God is not a man that He should lie. So the question today is how great is your vision? How far can you see with the eyes of faith? Start embracing that vision through your praise and worship to God. Give thanks for what you have yet to see with your natural eyes. We always speak of great men as being men of vision. Obviously their vision was not limited to the natural realm. They could see something beyond what was currently present and they set themselves on the course to achieve and walk into it. They didn’t let the naysayers or doubt, unbelief or failures dissuade them, but they kept pressing into that vision till they realized faith becoming substance. How great is your vision? “If you can see it, then you can have it.”
Blessings,
#kent
The Deliverer
October 21, 2015
Psalms 107:6 Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, [and] he delivered them out of their distresses.
The Deliverer
The Word of God is a book of deliverance. Time and time again in story after story we see God moving on behalf of His chosen people to deliver them. Many times it was their sin and rebellion that had brought them to the place where there was no way out but God. The ultimate Deliverer we have found in the person of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. He has not only delivered us from the law of sin and death, but He continues to be our Deliverer today. We, like the people of God before us, often cry out in faith for the Lord’s deliverance. Psalms 34:4 holds as true for us today as it did for David, “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Many of us are seeking the Lord for areas of deliverance in our personal lives. We find ourselves captivated by fear, doubt, sickness, debt, sin, oppression and other areas that have brought us into a bondage in which we have no way out. I believe the Lord is that same Deliver He has always been, both in the Old and the New Testament. He will hear the cries of His people who humble themselves and pray. Some of us may believe the Lord is our Deliverer, but we have become discouraged in the wait. Our faith may be wavering as we may have stood for a long period in hopes of our deliverance. Moses had a similar issue when He was waiting on God to move in delivering God’s people from Pharaoh’s bondage. In Exodus 5:22 –23 it says, “And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Lord, wherefore hast thou [so] evil entreated this people? why [is] it [that] thou hast sent me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.” Sometimes, like Moses, we know the Lord is faithful to His promises, but we don’t see anything happening. In fact, sometimes it just seems to get worse instead of better. There is a period gestation and pregnancy before a child is brought forth. So it is with many of God’s promises. When they are brought forth it is often through great travail and pain, but we can’t give up on the child of promise. We must continue to carry it till it is the Lord’s time. Galatians 6:9 admonishes us, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Continue to hold fast to the promises of God and His deliverance for He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Blessings,
#kent
God, I don’t Deserve You
June 17, 2015
Psalms 71:5
For thou [art] my hope, O Lord GOD: [thou art] my trust from my youth.
God, I don’t Deserve You
Throughout the highs and lows of life, the victories and the defeats, the triumphs and the disasters the one thing that is constant is God’s love. How thankful I am that my hope and confidence is not in myself. It would be as vanity and vapor if it were. All through life the anchor has been the Lord. Even in the times I felt rejected and cast off by others and the times that I even have hated myself, I have known like David that God is my hope and my trust is in Him. As we are pressing in to know and love God more we all know that we make a lot of mistakes and miss the mark more than we would like. The good news is that while there are times we may really get down on ourselves and feel totally condemned, God loves us. He loves us through our failures as well as our successes. While He doesn’t justify or condone our sin, He can forgive us and restore us into right fellowship with Him.
God loves you. Even if you don’t know how He could, He does. No matter what falls we take in life or even if we have slipped back into sin, hope in the Lord. Continue to put your confidence in Him. He is the One that you can always trust to love you, forgive and restore you if you will put your trust always in Him. We don’t deserve His love, His forgiveness or His mercy, but they are new every morning. His arms are open to us today. Come, let us embrace Him and draw near to Him again.
Blessings,
#kent
Activate
May 4, 2015
Acts 2:42-47
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Activate
As we commit and devote our hearts to the Lord we are going to see activation. The Holy Spirit is wanting to activate his body even as the early church was activated after Pentecost and even greater. This is the day to take our Sunday Christianity and make it an active part of our every day life and encounters with the world around us. We need so much of Jesus spilling out of us that there is no way we can contain or hide the life that is living inside of us. This is the day to let Christ shine through our lives in word and deed.
For years we have set under the Word of God. Today is the day to become the Word of God in the flesh as we live by the Spirit in the love of God toward all men. We are carriers of His divine life and we want to infect every part of our world with His love and great salvation. It is not just about getting someone to pray a prayer and make a confession of faith, it is about being so much the reality of what we profess that others want what we have and they will seek us out to receive it.
The world’s general perception of Christianity looks very little like Christ. As the world has looked upon the Church as a whole, they have seen hypocrisy, materialism, ungodliness, judgementalism and self-righteousness. No wonder so many disdain Christianity. This is the time when they need to begin to see the reality of the true Church, the bride of Christ and His power and love manifested through her. For this love and power to flow through us, He must possess us body, soul and spirit. Our lives must be so focused and set upon the Father’s business. It can no longer be about life as usual; eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. This is the year to see and step into a radical transformation in the body of Christ, at least the first fruits of it. I believe God has prepared a people to champion His cause and bring a transformation in the paradigm of what the church of God is and what it should look like.
It is a day for us to graduate out of the school of learning and knowing and step into the world of being and doing. What is our faith if it is not activated to bring us forth in who we have been called to be as sons and daughter’s of the MOST HIGH GOD!
“Holy Spirit, arise in the hearts of your people and activate us to extreme godliness, holy living and love impacting lives. Emancipate us from all sin and every love and affection we have had for it. Help your people to rock the former image of your church and be the example of what the people of God are to truly look like. Help us to loose ourselves as we take up our cross and follow you whithersoever you would lead and direct us. Give us ears to hear your precious voice and hearts tender to quickly obey whatever you instruct us to do. Help us to walk the walk of faith and step boldly into who you have created us and called us to be. You are our God and in You we will be strong and do exploits. The world will come to know us by our love and unity and no longer by our division and condemnation. We will exemplify the love and nature of Christ in the earth, because we dare to allow that Christ to come forth in us. We dare to step into our Sonship and the high calling that we have in Christ Jesus. Our eyes, our hearts, our minds and desires are set upon You Holy Father. Activate Your people in righteousness, power and divine authority to have dominion over every darkness and every perverted thing that we may bring the hearts of a lost world into alignment with the restoration of the identity you want to give back to them. Help us to come into the image of what the true Church and body of Christ is suppose to look like in this hour that you might be glorified and magnified among men. Amen!”
Today is our day to be transformed from the introverts of self-centered lives to become the extroverts of Christ expressed lives. Let us be that standard of Christ activated for all to see and aspire too. Let our lives be the light that transcends the darkness and the love that brings healing, hope and salvation to every lost and wounded soul.
blessings,
#kent
Unity in the Body
April 8, 2015
Colossians 3:12-14
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Unity in the Body
I was just thinking about if my right thumb got offended with my index finger and decided to leave my right hand go over to my left. Now I’ve got two left thumbs. Then my left big toe has falling out with my left foot and decides to go join up with my nose. Now I’ve got my former big left toe trying to function as a nose. Do we get the picture of how dissension and disunity in the body can quickly bring dysfunction and misalignment? It doesn’t take long before we no longer have a functioning body, but a freakish mess. Does that resemble how we see a lot of the body of Christ trying to operate in today?
Why, because we are all so easily offended and willing to move out of the place where God has set us. It is important that you truly seek God to place you in a body and that when He does you are not moved except by Him. Most of us know that when you start rubbing a lot of different personalities together you may well create a blister or a sore spot. Our first tendency is get up and just move to a different seat or a different church. Just because our brothers and sisters are Christians doesn’t mean everything in our relationship with them is going to be rosy. What we may overlook is there is always an enemy at work to kill, steal and destroy and while he may well be at work to cause disunity and division, there is also God that is at work to mature us in our love and tolerance of one another.
I see people come and go out of our particular body of Christ all of the time. Most of them are precious men and women of God. I observe that so many times it is personal dislike, disagreements or offenses with others that make them move on. Maybe it was in God’s time to move them on, but a lot of times I think it is because we won’t allow ourselves to be perfected in love. Our love is still mostly about our personal preferences, opinions and how we think things should be. Because we took up a grievance and moved out of position of where God placed us, how do you think that ends up impacting your ministry for yourself and for others. Now you move someplace else until you are offended or in disagreement again and so the cycle goes. Thus so many play the game of musical churches.
What we are missing is some of the spiritual clothing that we are suppose to have put on. Instead of our suit and tie or our going to Sunday dress let’s put the clothing that the Word exhorts us to be clothed with. Compassion, having more of a heart for others than we do for ourselves. Kindness, which extends itself to looking after the interest of others and not just self. Humility, which is strength under control, so that despite who and what you may be in the Spirit, you are always coming under and lifting others up. Gentleness, it is not harsh, or brash, but handles others with the love of Jesus. Patience, last but not least, it is the patience of God that helps us to endure the offenses, misdeeds and issues of others. Remember that, unless you’ve started walking on water, you have some issues of your own that others have to tolerate in you. The bottom line is we have to grasp and lay hold of what true agape’ love is, if we are going to start seeing unity at work in the body. As long the body is always upset and fighting among itself it can never come into the focus of its purpose. The first revelation we all have to get is that body ministry and functionality is not first about us; it is about Him! We come together to first worship and serve Him, not just to get our ego stroked and our preferences met.
We have entered into an hour and season where love and unity in the body is paramount to what God is doing at this time. He is calling us to be a healthy, living breathing organism ruled and compelled by love, not a misfit organization trying to play church. We’ve come to treat our relationship with the body of Christ like we do many of our marriages, when it gets to messy we bail out of it. As long we keep running away and moving on, we can’t come into the fullness of unity, love and purpose God has for us.
I am not going to tell you that everything leadership or somebody else in the body did to you was right or justified. It probably wasn’t, but what does the Word say? “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Have we all truly done that? It would be great if we were all perfect in our love and didn’t have to deal with these issues, but the truth is that it takes dealing with these issues if we are going to mature in the love of Christ. You don’t think there were days Jesus might have felt like kicking his disciples to the curb and saying, “I don’t have to put up with this.” It was because He clothed himself with these very attributes that He not only put with them, but endured the cross for them, as well as us. If it is our desire to be identified with His nature and character, then we are going to have to endure some of the work of the cross in us. Be where God places you and stay there until He moves you. If you are going through some things it is because you need to grow through some of these things. Remember it is the lowest valleys that prepare you for the highest mountains.
The body must truly put on the love and humility of Christ if we are to walk in unity to accomplish the purpose of the Father. He said we would be a bride without spot or wrinkle. Well, obviously there is a whole lot of cleaning and ironing that needs to go on to get us there. Allow His love to have its perfect work in you.
Blessings,
#kent
Our Pleasure is in the Lord
March 24, 2015
Our Pleasure is in the Lord
Psalms 16:5-11
LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. 7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. 8 I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, 10 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 11 You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
The Psalmist declares, “You have made known to me the path of life, in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy and at thy right hand pleasures for evermore.” What a wonderfully secure and precious place the redeemed have found in Christ. Though the earthly realms and kingdoms are falling down around us, though outwardly we may face peril, adversity and death, what a security and peace we have in knowing who and what we are in Christ. We know that He will not abandon us to the grave. We know that He is our resurrection and our life, through faith in Christ we are eternally bound to Him. One of the greatest basic needs that a person has in their lives is the need for security. We all want to know and live in that safe place where we are not threatened and we have something and someone that we can count on, that will always be there for us. Someone who will never leave us or forsake us. That is what we have found in Christ. He is our security and our strong fortress. He is our shield and our buckler. Whatever life throws at us and whatever trials come we know that our reliance, our final hope and confidence is in him. Everything else around us may fail, but He won’t fail. Everyone else around us may desert us, but He will stand by us.
The Apostle Paul relates this steadfast confidence and the Lord’s faithfulness in 2Timothy 4:16-18, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all [men] forsook me: [I pray God] that it may not be laid to their charge. ¶ Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and [that] all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve [me] unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom [be] glory for ever and ever. Amen.” We can hopefully see why our identification with Christ is so powerful and must be so strong. Our identity is in Him and not in the weakness, frailties and failures of our flesh. All that we truly are, all that we hope for and walk in faith in, is realized in Christ. He is our foundational and unmovable rock.
We are not going to always understand all of God’s ways or why some things happen as they do, but that must never deter us from knowing Him as our life and eternal security. The greatest undertaking of the enemy is to rock our boat and to bring about circumstances that will undermine our faith and cause us to forsake it. What we know is that God never fails. Our perceptions of God may not always hold water, but that doesn’t mean that He has failed. He is still sovereign upon His throne and He still holds the whole world in His hands. What I do know is that in the presence of the Lord there is fullness of joy and that is why I want to spend a lot of time in His presence. At His right hand are pleasures for evermore. There is no greater pleasure in life than to be walking in the perfect will of God for you. In that place you will have fulfillment, contentment, peace and joy. You will find the pleasure that the world can not offer. The world’s pleasures are temporal and fleeting. So many of them only lead to a hollow life full of darkness and despair, but not so with the Lord’s pleasures. They lead to life, liberty and fullness of joy.
The apostle Paul says it so wonderfully in Romans 8:28-39, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Your life is secure in Him.
Blessings,
#kent
Passion for Your Lover
March 23, 2015
Song of Solomon 1:2-5
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love you! 4 Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.
Passion for Your Lover
Is your Christianity a routine? Has it become stagnant with the same old ritual and habits? Do you feel like going to church is just going through the motions and doing what you are supposed to do? If our Christianity has become mundane, boring and uneventful to us then we are missing the passion for the greatest lover that ever was.
The virgins and the friends of the bridegroom may have a more distant relationship with the Bridegroom, but for the bride He is her passion, He is the air she breathes, the song she sings and the dream that she dreams. All of her hopes are in Him. He is whom she lives for and pursues with all that is within her. Why, because it is required of her or it is what she is suppose to do? No, it is because she is so passionately in love with this bridegroom that it is all that she can think to do. He fills her thoughts, her dreams and aspirations. Oh, to be with Him and to come into union with Him. What adjectives can describe her love and desire for Him?
She has discovered what so many have missed. She is in love and nothing else matters around her compared to Him. Oh, how she languishes for His love to be poured out to her. He is the one that puts the butterflies in her tummy. He is like sweet smelling perfume, she just wants to breathe Him in and His name is like perfume poured out. With the fragrance of His name there is life, healing, deliverance and salvation. It is the name above every name and the name that is the sweetest fragrance in all of the earth. No wonder so many love him.
She cries to Him, “Take me away with you, let us hurry!” In John 14:3 the Bridegroom tells His bride, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, [there] ye may be also.” As the Bridegroom has prepared a place for her, so she has prepared herself for Him. Now she is ready and crying out to Him. It is not about escaping or running away from all that is happening around her, for her it is the union with Him. “Let the King bring me into His chambers.” It is about union and intimacy that produces life and a manchild that is in the image of his Father.
The fruit of her loins the enemy despises, seeking to devour and destroy this one who comes forth in the image and likeness of the King. This child is he (many membered he) that rules and reigns with Christ and becomes His government in a new heaven and a new earth. It is this bride that desires that seed. His seed of life and godliness that shall prevail and overcome, that will set creation free and bring all of humanity into the emancipating liberty of Jesus Christ.
What is your passion today? If you want to know this kind of love, then pursue Him. Often He may seem evasive as we seek His presence. He is looking for those who will not be discouraged and will not take no for an answer. He is looking for those who are not easily distracted and set their affections upon other things. He is proving her whose heart is perfect toward Him and who will not allow her love to be denied. Are you such a person of passion and purpose?
Blessings,
#kent