his and hers

He: O you who dwell in the gardens,

with companions listening for your voice;

let me hear it.

She: Make haste, my beloved,

and be like a gazelle

or a young stag

on the mountains of spices.

Song of Solomon 8:13-14

Lovers want to be with one another. And the Song of Solomon ends with the couple, Solomon and his lovely bride, singing out their longing for being together. It is romantic opera. The last verses of this grand love ballad casts the bride in a garden with her friends, awaiting with excitement for the arrival of her love. Solomon sings out asking for her to join him so he may hear her voice in the garden and quickly make his way to her. She encourages him in answer to make haste to come to the fragrant mountains of their love where they can finally be together.

The one clear theme repeated all throughout Song of Solomon is longing. And it is fitting that the book ends with one more expression of the longing for love. Love has at its root an aching need to care, to be with, to hold what is loved. The lover craves the beloved. And both Solomon and his bride constantly express this longing to be together all throughout the song. To love is to long. To be loved is to be wanted with an aching, passionate need.

The Lord Himself said at creation: “It is not good for man to be alone.” And when Adam first set eyes on Eve, he knew what God meant. So love and marriage between a man and his God-given wife is a good and holy thing. The love of a caring family is a good and holy thing. The need to love and to be loved is made in us by God and He gloriously created sexuality and marriage so we might know it, and be satisfied in His creation, and celebrate it all well. Love is worth singing about.

Do not fear.

“I called on your name, O Lord,

from the depths of the pit;

you heard my plea, ‘Do not close

your ear to my cry for help!’

You came near when I called on you;

you said, Do not fear!’

Lamentations 3:55-57

Timely words for any time my heart is afraid. I’m trusting God when things seem impossible or overbearing or out of my control. Fear is always around the corner... and not the creepy horror show kind of fear. That’s nothing... it won’t happen. I won’t get jumped by killer clowns or shadow monsters. But what is real is the fear that follows in sin’s wake. The broken system we live in that we inevitably trust in will let us down. That makes me at times afraid to trust anything. My own failures (rooted in by broken sinfulness) will lead me to fear.

Jeremiah wrote these words as Jerusalem burned in ruin around him. And even before then, as the rejected prophet, he literally prayed from the bottom of a muddy cistern where he was being punished and imprisoned. He pleaded with God from the depths of this emotional pit. And God came near when he called on Him with three words of strength: DO... NOT... FEAR.

Lord,

I’m comforted by Your words of encouragement... Do not fear. I am going to pray hard for my life today to apply this truth. You know what is going on. You know I can fixate on the future and start to fear. You know I can wallow in past failures and then fear. But I will trust that You are near me now and I will believe that You can bring relief. I will not fear.

Amen

like this man

The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

John 7:46

Jesus spoke

Truth

With authority

Challenging pride

And false religion.

No one ever spoke like this man.

Jesus lived

The truth

With sympathy

Challenging our sin

And bringing grace.

No one ever lived like this man.

Jesus loved

The truth

And sinners

Accepting their repentance

And giving forgiveness.

No one ever loved like this man.

Jesus died

On a cross

Giving Himself

Exchanging His holiness

For our sin.

No one ever died like this man.

Jesus rose

Victorious

From the dead

Challenging death

Giving eternal life.

No one still lives like this man.

my source idols

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.

James 3:14-16

My prayer is that the Holy Spirit of God would use this truth from God’s Word to purge me of selfish ambition and jealous comparison of my life with others. It is a horrible thing to have those thoughts ruling my heart. With them come conflict, disorder, and sinful practices. I want to avoid this personally. I want to avoid this in my ministry. The wisdom that comes from above must rule my heart and I pray it helps me lead my flock in that same ruling wisdom.

Lord, I am a broken man for whom Christ died. And my sinful nature still has this disturbing proclivity toward driving self-fulfillment, even in what I want others to see as “holy” in me. O God, purge me from this source idol of approval! I only need to live for Your glory and the proclamation of the gospel in my life.

Lord, I am a sinner who can covet the stuff of other lives, doubting Your provision for me... and not just materialistically. I can read into the Instaglammed filtered images projected by others and then wish I had their experiences or their perceived happiness. I am covetous. I compare my circumstances and become a jealous, bitter judge. This poisons my heart for living in Christ’s counter-culture kingdom. It ruins my chance at really knowing community in Your church. O God, purge me from this source idol of entitlement! I only need Jesus and His remaking of my life into a new and better person for His glory.

life together

And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Ecclesiastes 4:12

There is strength in friendships. This small segment of Ecclesiastes reminds us of the benefits of investing in good relationships with our friends in community (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). Two are indeed better than one. This holds true in friendships, in discipleship, in marriages, and in families. Life together is what people were created to enjoy. It was not good for Adam to be alone. Jesus even modeled community by pursuing relationship with disciples and with friends. We were never meant to be a solo act. And like the old song reminds us: One is the loneliest number. We need to pursue the God-designed strength found in community.

I think I first appreciated this truth while a young freshmen in high school. At that stage in my life, major changes were afoot. My old life had been uprooted. My family moved from suburbia to the inner city. My mother’s health declined rapidly. My father’s work hours and patterns of coping with all the difficulty kept him away from home a lot. I needed community to get me through, and God wisely and graciously placed me in the right place at that insanely difficult time to forge deep friendships that prepared me best for life. Those people are still strands woven into my life, and though I may not see them much, their impact remains deep in the fabric of my soul. I knew before the age of 18 that I’d never live without a community of relationships to sustain and nourish me, and with whom I was stronger. And I would give myself to strengthening that community as well. That is real church to me!

Lord Jesus,

Thank You for the call to live life together, with Your people, in the church. It is messy, no doubt. It is difficult at times. It is hard to obey You even while we are together. And we have to work out differences, and challenge our sinfulness together, and sometimes we hurt one another while trying to help. But it is still very much a good thing, and it is really good to be together in community with You, Lord!

Amen

justice and pardon

In those days and in that time, declares the Lord, iniquity shall be sought in Israel, and there shall be none, and sin in Judah, and none shall be found, for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.

Jeremiah 50:20

What an encouraging insight into the full scope of God’s forgiving mercies! In this prophecy by Jeremiah against Babylon, the prophet delivers God’s decree of judgment against the oppressors of His people. There will be a time when Babylon will be judged for cruel treatment of the Jews. And the remnant left behind in the land of Israel will rejoice not just in God’s justice, but in His forgiveness of His people.

The reason a nationwide search for sin by God comes up empty is not because sinners got their act together and finally stopped all their sinning. Rather, it is because God pardoned them, and thus there are no longer any transgressions of the commandments for which God holds them guilty. They are pardoned! God’s forgiveness of sin among His people is the unexpected turn to grace in this stern pronouncement of the doom of Babylon. To the oppressors God pours out His justice in total destruction. To the oppressed who have turned back in repentance to God, He forgives in bountiful mercy so that no more guilt remains in them. The wicked are completely punished. Those in covenant with God are graciously restored and forgiven.

In both cases, God does the work. God moves Persia to invade and defeat Babylon. God pardons Israel and Judah so that His people can return to worship and obey their God. God leaves a remnant whom He forgives. God brings great judgment on the nations who rage against Him. He is holy, righteous, and gets glory for His great name in both His judgment, and His pardon.

king by force

Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

John 6:15

This was the end result of Jesus feeding the crowd of five thousand plus by the Sea of Galilee. These people were so astounded by the miracle that they now saw in Jesus the perfect solution for a political leader. Imagine how great it would be to have a politician who could literally feed the masses. There would be no physical need if this kind of guy was your king. And the crowd was intent on a populist uprising to kidnap Jesus and “force” Him to be the king. What a weird ministry moment. Jesus just wanted to teach His disciples and to care for people by feeding the hungry that followed Him. The crowd instead wanted a revolution against Rome, with Jesus as their new Caesar.

Jesus easily refused this populist temptation to fame and earthly power. You do not “make” Jesus king by force of your own will. He is Lord alone by His own nature. You submit to His rule, You cannot force Him to do what You want. This was not worship that the crowd was intent on doing... it was actually rebellion that demanded that God give them what they wanted.

Jesus,

I cannot “make you Lord” by force of my will, as if any other rule could have legitimate claim over my life. I surrender my will to Your rule instead. I don’t believe You so that I can get my best life now in selfish greed! I don’t have a Lord I trust with my conditions met! I simply trust in You because I am nothing without You and only by Your Lordship do I have eternal life and anything here to call a life. O Lord, purge from me any sinful thinking that demands anything from You as a pretext to my trust in You. I submit to You, my King, solely on Your terms.

Amen