Brethren,
You who have been called according to His purposes, washed by the sanctifing water of his words, the words that speak to us of his great love. It is to you I write.
Consider that great love epic that is recorded in our scriptures. That work called the Song of Solomon. What a beautiful piece of erotic literature.
"What?" you ask, "Erotic literature in the Bible?"
"Yes," I answer, "Erotic literature in our Bible, God's Word."
We have a piece of most wonderful and unfilthy erotic literature in our Bible. And you trust your children with it and allow them to read it all they want to, don't you? The Song of Solomon has many erotic images in it. True, and pure images. Only the sinful and vulgar make of it something impure and vulgar.
I challenge you married couples to read it outloud to each other. Send the children off to grandma's or aunties house. Go into your bedroom, shut the door and husbands read the Solomons part, while looking your wife in her eyes. Think of her as Solomon thought of his new bride. Wives, read the bride's part and look into your husband's eyes and think of him as the bride did of Solomon. You will find the undefiled eroticism of this writing.
Now, I give you a mystery. This piece is about Christ and the church!
Think about that for a minute or two. Meditate upon it for a week or a month and you will see it!
Christ has the same passionate love for his bride as Solomon did for his. CHRIST LOVES THE CHURCH, PASSIONATELY! I can't write that loud enough!
Christ loves the sight of her. Loves the sound of her voice. Loves the scent of her. Loves her body. Loves her soul. Loves her spirit.
Before you get away from me, realize that no one of us individually are the church. This is not about you and Jesus. It is about US and JESUS. It takes a group of us to express the bride of Christ. In any given locality, any given fellowship of believers, any given local church, you find the bride of Christ. And Jesus loves you passionately!
With all our problems, with all our faults, with all our rebellious ways. Jesus passionately loves the church!
He pursues her, her gifts her with so many great blessings, all to win her! He gave all, even to his very life's blood to win her. In fact his death, was a part of the bride price that Jesus to obtain his bride.
Jesus could not enter into the bridle chamber with his perfect bride, until that terrible price was paid. And he paid it most willingly. For the thought of the prize laid before him, he sacrificed his own life to redeem his bride, to purchase us for his own.
The beloved of God, His most precious son, gave his life to purchase a bride, a beloved for himself. CHRIST LOVES THE CHURCH MOST PASSIONATELY!!!
That is the mystery of the ages. There is now no Jew, no Gentile. There is only the bride! Of two peoples God made one, one bride! One beloved!
Brethren let us now love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her! Passionately! let us love one another. Preferring one another in love.... may the Lord bless you with peace and grace as you bask in the light of his great love!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Great Eternal Romance
The Great Romance, an Eternal Story
By Kent Secor, with respects to Devern Fromke and Frank Viola and many others.
There has been a story that caught my attention for the first time about 30 some years ago. Though other ideas and stories have carried my attention away from time to time I keep getting drawn back to this one.
At times I could only catch a small window sized glimpse of it, other times it was as though someone opened the whole horizon to me. It is more breathtaking then the most beautful of sun rises or sun sets. More stunning then the most gorgeous of brides. More precious then the most precious of babies.
It begins in eternity past. If eternity can have a past, being a state of being without any measure of time. But for our story it was in eternity past.
There is only one being there, God, who would reveal himself to a man of a nation as I who AM!
God was alone with himself. But not alone, for he had a beloved with him. Yet God was alone and desired a mate. God at the core of his being is a lover, so much so that it is truth to say that God is love itself. As the great eternal lover he had a desire, one to love. God is the beloved, and as the beloved desired with the greatest depth of passion the lover.
Now we spring forward. Time now is. Time a part of the creation that God created for the express purpose of placing his loved one in.
We see a garden, we see God creating the first man, Adam. Adam made in the image of God the beloved. Adam made to love God and another. God places man, Adam into the perfect garden he created in the perfect world he created.
Adam sees all the animals that God created. God calls them all to pass before the king of the world, and asks Adam to name them. Each pair of animals passes before God and Adam. Adam names each one, and sees that each one has a mate. He comes to know that he alone of all the creatures of creation is alone. He has no "other" to know, to love.
God sees that Adam knows, and tells Adam, "It is not good for you, man, to be alone." God places Adam into a great sleep, opens up his side, removes a rib, and from that rib fashions Adam a mate. This first woman is also Adam. Together they form the first man, "male and female created He (God) them, and He called them Adam."
The first created lover, has his beloved. She is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. He is completely enraptured with her. His full desire is for her alone. He has no eyes for any other, for there is no other to look at. And if there were and when there will be, he still will want her and her alone.
She is the crowning acheivement of all of God's creation. Last made and most beautiful of all. Next to Adam, the perfect created man, she shines like a jewel. She is Adam's glory, shining forth with grace and beauty. Truth, intelligence, love, beauty, all are hers. And she is completely enraptured and in love with her mate, Adam. She has only eyes for him
They drink in each other. They smell each other. They taste each other and experience each other in the deepest depths of passion.
And God looked upon them and said "IT IS GOOD"!
I tell you a mystery brethren, I speak here not about man and wife, but about Christ and the church.
Christ is the second Adam. He came into the world to redeem his bride. To set her free, to empower her to be his bride. And his bride is radiant to him. To him his bride is worth his everything, even his own life. That is the bride price that Christ paid, even his own blood.
Brethren, we are that bride. You are a member of her, if you belong to Christ and not just some religious organization. And he is totally, deeply, passionately in love with us all.
The Great Eternal Romance was all about God giving his beloved Son a bride. He is still forming that bride. Each new believer helps to form her.
More later...
By Kent Secor, with respects to Devern Fromke and Frank Viola and many others.
There has been a story that caught my attention for the first time about 30 some years ago. Though other ideas and stories have carried my attention away from time to time I keep getting drawn back to this one.
At times I could only catch a small window sized glimpse of it, other times it was as though someone opened the whole horizon to me. It is more breathtaking then the most beautful of sun rises or sun sets. More stunning then the most gorgeous of brides. More precious then the most precious of babies.
It begins in eternity past. If eternity can have a past, being a state of being without any measure of time. But for our story it was in eternity past.
There is only one being there, God, who would reveal himself to a man of a nation as I who AM!
God was alone with himself. But not alone, for he had a beloved with him. Yet God was alone and desired a mate. God at the core of his being is a lover, so much so that it is truth to say that God is love itself. As the great eternal lover he had a desire, one to love. God is the beloved, and as the beloved desired with the greatest depth of passion the lover.
Now we spring forward. Time now is. Time a part of the creation that God created for the express purpose of placing his loved one in.
We see a garden, we see God creating the first man, Adam. Adam made in the image of God the beloved. Adam made to love God and another. God places man, Adam into the perfect garden he created in the perfect world he created.
Adam sees all the animals that God created. God calls them all to pass before the king of the world, and asks Adam to name them. Each pair of animals passes before God and Adam. Adam names each one, and sees that each one has a mate. He comes to know that he alone of all the creatures of creation is alone. He has no "other" to know, to love.
God sees that Adam knows, and tells Adam, "It is not good for you, man, to be alone." God places Adam into a great sleep, opens up his side, removes a rib, and from that rib fashions Adam a mate. This first woman is also Adam. Together they form the first man, "male and female created He (God) them, and He called them Adam."
The first created lover, has his beloved. She is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. He is completely enraptured with her. His full desire is for her alone. He has no eyes for any other, for there is no other to look at. And if there were and when there will be, he still will want her and her alone.
She is the crowning acheivement of all of God's creation. Last made and most beautiful of all. Next to Adam, the perfect created man, she shines like a jewel. She is Adam's glory, shining forth with grace and beauty. Truth, intelligence, love, beauty, all are hers. And she is completely enraptured and in love with her mate, Adam. She has only eyes for him
They drink in each other. They smell each other. They taste each other and experience each other in the deepest depths of passion.
And God looked upon them and said "IT IS GOOD"!
I tell you a mystery brethren, I speak here not about man and wife, but about Christ and the church.
Christ is the second Adam. He came into the world to redeem his bride. To set her free, to empower her to be his bride. And his bride is radiant to him. To him his bride is worth his everything, even his own life. That is the bride price that Christ paid, even his own blood.
Brethren, we are that bride. You are a member of her, if you belong to Christ and not just some religious organization. And he is totally, deeply, passionately in love with us all.
The Great Eternal Romance was all about God giving his beloved Son a bride. He is still forming that bride. Each new believer helps to form her.
More later...
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