Jun
By Yolandie Mostert (June 2023)
His cheeks are like beds of spices. (Songs 5:13a)
Today I’m sharing about probably the most known facet of Jesus Christ – He is love. Although we easily sing the hymn: ‘God is love…”, I don’t believe that we will ever be able to grasp the full extent of His love for mankind and His creation. Our picture of love when measured against His love is really small and flawed.
Symbolism
The cheeks of the Bridegroom in this verse in Song of Songs speaks of His compassion and love. He willingly gave His cheeks to those that plucked out His beard.
I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting. (Isa 50:6)
In one of the previous messages I’ve mentioned that Jesus was no victim of people. No man took His life. He laid it down from a position of power and majesty. And because of His love for us.
No one takes it away from me; on the contrary, I lay it down of my own free will. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. This is what my Father commanded me to do.” (Joh 10:18)
The word spices refers to a sweet, pleasant aroma and the beds of spices speaks of an abundance of this pleasantness. It’s not only one small bed, it’s plural. The love of Jesus is not theoretical or just something we read of in the Bible. He demonstrated it by His dwelling between mere men on earth.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (Joh 1:14)
The heart of the Father
There is one verse in the story about Abraham having to sacrifice Isaac that really touches my heart every time I read it. The Father is speaking and says the following:
Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Gen 22:2)
Listen to the heart of the Father: ‘take your only son, the one whom you love’. The love of the Father for Jesus, His Son, is enormous. But not only for the Son, also for all of mankind. My brain cannot comprehend this. When I read news clippings of some politicians, world leaders and wicked people of influence and see how they are in complete defiance and rebellion towards God, I cannot help to think by myself that it will only take one movement of the finger of God to crush them. This is how powerful and big God is. We read that Jesus will consume the antichrist with the breath of His mouth and destroy Him with the brightness of His coming. How patient and merciful is God to bear with a wicked and rebellious world and still calls them to repentance?
Do I take any pleasure at all in having the wicked person die?” asks Adonai Elohim. “Wouldn’t I prefer that he turn from his ways and live? (Eze 18:23 CJB)
My testimony
I want to share a personal experience with you because it shows us a small piece of God’s heart for men. Recently I took my car to the carwash for cleaning. While I was waiting at a table, I watched the guy’s cleaning and drying my car. There were about seven or eight working on my car. The next moment the Lord spoke to me and asked me a question: “Do you know how I feel about those people?’. Before I could answer, I experienced a supernational love flooding my being and I experienced strong love and empathy for each one of them. In that intense moment the following Scripture came to mind:
And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. (Mark 6:34a)
I experience the same Godly love flowing from my being when I minister to people or pray for them. An intense compassion and love flow from my innermost parts. I know it doesn’t come from my flesh but out of my spirit. The Holy Spirit allows me to experience a tiny piece of the love of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit. I believe that it’s only a tiny fraction; man’s capacity is not large enough to handle more of the intensity of His love.
What John understood
The apostle John understood something of the love of the Lord. When we read his epistle and letters, we can experience the love. Please take time to read his three letters. Because of time I’m only going to quote a few verses and comment on them. Let’s hold a mirror in front of us and realise that the ecclesia as a whole, but also each one of us individually are falling short when it comes to love.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 Joh 4:7-8)
Love is the fruit and sign that we know God. We can so easily declare that we know the Lord, but if we don’t have love, we may know of Him, but don’t really know Him.
The greater the revelation of Jesus Christ as love, the more we will love one another. Not only with the love of Jesus, but also with the love of the Father and of the Holy Spirit. All three truly loves us and we cannot do anything to deserve that love. However, we are commanded to love each other because we are loved by God. It’s a decision of the will to love and when we come to realise how impaired our love is, we become more dependent on Him to love through us.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. (1 Joh 4:11-12)
Jesus commanded us to abide in Him and He in us. You can read the passage in John 15. For many years I have yearned for this. I was still very young when I realised that this verse contained a truth that will take my relationship with the Lord to greater depths. I just didn’t know how to abide and how to achieve this practically. No one at that stage was able to answer my question to satisfaction. In the next verse we learn how to abide. When we abide in love, we will automatically abide in Him. Love is the key.
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (1 Joh 4:16)
No fear in love
Because of perfect love, we may be bold in the day of judgement. We have nothing to fear when we are full of love. And it’s not only applicable to that day, it also applies to the present. There is no place for fear when we are full of love. We fear so many things: disease, death, poverty, to lose our jobs, the future, what people think of us and whether we are acceptable or not. Love is the cure against all fear.
Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. (1 Joh 4:17-18)
Spirit revelation is required
We can read many books and listen to hundreds of sermons, but if the Holy Spirit will not help us to love, we will not get it right. We can say that we love, but our deeds will prove the contrary. It’s also not possible to really understand His perfect love without a revelation by God Himself. This facet of who He is, is truly the most difficult to understand in the correct perspective. People have the tendency to label everything as love and to live their lives as if God’s love is an exemption to sin. The reasoning is that because God is love, He will simply forgive with no consequences. This flawed reasoning stems from a misunderstanding of the fullness of who God is. He loves perfectly while He judges righteously. On the other hand people take offense at the God’s love. Then you will hear questions like: ‘I don’t understand how God can love those people’ or ‘a God of love will never allow bad things to happen’. Again, these thoughts come from the flesh. People have little to no idea who God really is and therefore expects His love to look like ours; conditional, biased and inconsistent.
We love Him because He first loved us. (1 Joh 4:19)
Love one another
Many times we will hear statements like: ‘my concern is not with people, only with God’ or ‘I don’t care about the people, as long as I’m in right standing with God’. Statements like these are in direct contrast to what the Bible teaches us. Our vertical relationship with God is directly influenced by our horisontal relationships with people. We cannot have one without the other. This truth reveals another part of God’s love. Godly love is a love put to action. Our love gets proved through our actions. The next part of John’s first letter, cuts the truth deep and with precision. When we don’t love our brothers and sisters, we cannot say that we love God. This forces us to look around us. Do we love everyone in the public assembly? Do we pray for them? Do we bless them? Regardless of how our personality clashes with theirs. We demonstrate our love for God by loving them. Just like the Father demonstrated His love for us by sacrificing Jesus for an undeserving world.
Whoever says, “I love God,” but hates his brother is a liar. The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he has not seen. And this is the commandment that we have from him: the person who loves God must also love his brother. (1 Joh 4:20-21)
We can ask God to enlarge our capacity for His love. “Lord, please help me to love you even more and to also love your people, let Your love flow through me, teach me Godly love, fill me with Your love”. We have so many good intensions. ‘From today I’m going to serve the Lord’ and come Monday afternoon our love disappeared in a difficult meeting or conflict with a colleague. This is not how Godly love works. We will never be able to truly love without God’s help. This is how miserable we really are. We cannot even love God without God’s help. To live in this kind of dependency on God is a good place to be.
But the LORD says, “Israel and Judah, what am I going to do with you? Your love for me disappears as quickly as morning mist; it is like dew, that vanishes early in the day. (Hos 6:4 GNB)
Without love…
The passage in 1 Corinthians 13 about love gets mostly only read at weddings. It’s rare to find it applied to daily lives. It will benefit us greatly to read it again, slowly and prayerfully, while we search our hearts. This passage gives us another peak in what really matters to God. He is not looking for our achievements and possessions, He wants our love.
I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me. (Hos 6:6 GNB)
Do we do good spiritual things? If our answer is yes, the next question will be: ‘do we have love that can be seen in our lives?’. If we don’t have love, then everything we do and achieve will be meaningless. It will count for nothing. Just listen to all the wonderful spiritual things that Paul lists that we can do. These things might end up meaning nothing. We can speak in tongues or even sing in tongues. We can prophesy with great accuracy. We can have exceptional knowledge of the Bible and can have great insight into spiritual truths. Maybe we are even able to teach others. Not many of us have faith that can move a mountain. That is quite a big faith that can count for something. But if we don’t have love; practical love that can be seen, all these things will mean nothing.
Paul continues to describe someone that gives all his possessions away, his house, his cars, all his clothes and furniture, everything. In our eyes this is something great. Even this will count for nothing if this person doesn’t have love. The last example is one of a martyr. This will also be meaningless without love.
Can we see how important love is for our King? The things that Paul listed sounds impossible to do for most of us and in His eyes it’s meaningless when measured against love. He is Love – it’s the essence of who He is. The more we abide in Him and live by the Spirit, the more love will be in us. How can it be otherwise? When love doesn’t flow from us, we have a problem and really need to find the root of the blockage.
What does Godly love look like?
I’m going to read a few verses from 1 Corinthians 13. This describes our King and how His people are supposed to be. I believe we don’t have to look far to see how far the church have moved from His standard. More times that what we want to admit we only see the contrary to what Scripture teaches in ourselves and in the lives of our fellow believers.
Love is patient and kind, not jealous, not boastful, not proud, rude or selfish, not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not gloat over other people’s sins but takes its delight in the truth. Love always bears up, always trusts, always hopes, always endures. (1 Cor 13:4-7)
I would like to close this message on a joyful note. We don’t have to fall into despair because of our shortcomings. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can change. We must have a desire to change and when we recognise a lack in our desire to change, we can even ask God to will in us to will. As long as our hearts yearn for Him and we seek and worship Him, He will help us. We can ask Him to love others through us. We can ask for His love to flow through our eyes when we look at people. Many times when I don’t know what to say or don’t have answers, I will ask God to let His love flow from my spirit to the person that sits in front of me. He answers because He is faithful.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)
Nothing can separate us from God’s love. No trauma, pain, things that happened in our past, people that resist us in serving God, future events, brokenness, bondage, demons or strongholds within us. His love is stronger than all of it. He is Love. Our God is not only a God of love. He is the essence of love.
Links
To listen to the introduction, as well as the Word I’ve received by the Holy Spirit concerning this series, please click here.
The audio version of this message is availalbe on our telegram channel: https://t.me/+1hYU7h46Jj1hZDc8
Part 1 – Who is the Bridegroom (background)
Part 2 – Who is your beloved?
Part 3 – He is my beloved
Part 4 – Hy is Light
Part 5 – Hy is Holy
Part 6 – Hy is the Warrior and Avenger
Part 7 – He is the Conqueror
Part 8 – He is the Head
Part 9 – The Set-Apart One
Part 10 – He is Unchanging
Part 11 – He is the Zealous One
Part 12 – He is the Judge
