Living Grace

“For why should I wander like a prostitute among your friends and your flock.” Song of songs 1:7

What God is after is us.

We are the delight of his heart. He wants to enjoy and celebrate with us the wonder of his love. To share with him in the beauty of his creation.

But it is this very idea that God wants to enjoy us that seems so difficult to grasp. Our minds are so rooted in the theology of the world that it we live a sort of Christian Karma, a spiritual blessing game of monopoly that as long as we land on the right squares it is all okay but as soon as we make the wrong move we are made to pay for it or at worse we might even be sent to jail.

Let’s take a look at the book of Jonah where we are introduced to a wonderful bunch of free spirited sailors. These seafaring traders were going about there daily lives when a Hebrew traveller asked them for a place on their ship to Spain. Not wanting to turn down a quick profit they are only too happy to take this extra load, after all this is easy money.

Somewhere on their journey, they start to experience the greatest storm that they had ever known. And it soon becomes a matter of survival, a desperate struggle to keep their ship afloat and save their lives.

The questions that enters their minds is where did this storm come from and where is God?

They cry out to their God’s to save them, but to no avail their God’s are silent, their God’s are not rescuing them!

Deep within their ship lies the Hebrew fast asleep while they desperately trying to stay alive. Perhaps it is all to do with him? Before he came everything was all right! The only course of action is wake him up and get him to talk to his God.

Awakening Jonah awakened their hearts to the grace of God. Awakening Jonah awakened their hearts to the mercy of God. For the grace of God was always there, available and reaching out to them deep within the heart of the ship.

It is his grace extended to us even when we don’t realise it and when we don’t perceive it. Often we are more like the Sailors as we reach out to God as a last resort, we try everything in our own effort and finally we awaken ourselves to the reality of the sleeping Christ we have alive within the depths of our heart.

In Christ you no longer have to wander for He has found you.

You no longer are left searching in the darkness.

When the storms of life arise remember that in Christ you are one with him and his life is united to your life, his heart has become your heart.

So awaken your heart, your senses and experience the freedom of Christ alive deep within your heart.

“I am dark but beautiful, O women of Jerusalem . ” – Song of songs 1:5

You were created in the image of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

You were designed to be a reflection of the Trinity.

You were formed by the glory of God, in the glory of God to radiate throughout eternity the glory of God.

The love of God, which is out of time, entered time in you and took up residence in your jar of clay.

And just as the three in one draw their identity from each other, we were created to draw our identity from our creator. This identity is the real treasure our hearts desire. And this identity is the value of our true worth.

To look for indentity in anything else diminishes our value, to each other and to ourself.

Our value is a reflection of our hearts treasure.

You are a child of your Father’s love and you are a beautiful, captivating image of your father’s love and everytime He looks at you it reminds him of the consuming passionate love that created you.

Above all else you are the climax, the pinnacle of creation and God sacrificed himself so you could run straight back into your Father’s arms.

Your real identity is found and established in the heart of the Father’s love.

“How right they are to adore you.” – Song of songs 1:4

The heart of the universe is perfect love.

This love has been given to us by and through grace, and grace is not a doctrine or a theology but a person, Jesus Christ.

He followed us into our own darkness. The darkness we had fashioned, we had so expertly created by our own hands and the God’s we had so convincingly made to satisfy our hearts desires. It was here behind the walls we built of our own imaginations that we thought we could finally escape God.

But God instead of rejecting us gave us the freedom to follow our own cravings and offered himself up and ran straight into our arms. He sent himself as the messenger of reconciliation and took our judgement, our punishment and gave us mercy offered up in grace.

We can have abundant life because of His determination to deliver us from the separation that we had created.

Christ never gives up on you, never leaves you and never forsakes you.

You are the delight of the Father’s heart the joy of the eternal God who adores you from beyond time .

For God’s love doesn’t depend upon you, isn’t conditional to your response, it is founded and shown in the sacrifice of Christ who loved you and died for you when you had turned your back on him.

In the depths of your heart is a residence of perfect love for the precious son of heaven has planted himself into the garden of your heart.

“How happy we are for you, O King. We praise your love even more than wine.”- Song of songs 1:4

You would think that God who created the universe, who set the earth in motion and put each star in its place would want to control all things. Often we hear preachers and ministers tell us that God is in control and whether you believe this is absolute control or partial control there is one element in his creation he cannot control. That is the love that flows from your heart. God cannot control where you give your love.

It is here in the mystery of love that we connect with the reality of our desire. For our hearts longing is the declaration of our true affection.

And here in the garden of our heart is the foundation of our deepest problem and that root that was created in love is the freedom to love.

For with the freedom to love comes the reason for evil. Freedom opens the door to love whatever our heart desires.

The lie of evil was and is that God is not good, he is withholding life from you and that you have got to take things into your own hands.

For our freedom is established in our passion to delight in our Father’s goodness or our belief that God does not want us.

Our response is ultimately founded in the delight of our heart. For to be found in the depths of his love is far better than to be satisfied with all the world can offer.

Love surpasses wine.

God desires your love, he longs for the intimacy of your heart, for your cries of passion.

For from the fountain of his love flows everlasting joy and streams of living peace.

“Take me with you come let’s run! The King has brought me into his bedroom.” Song of songs 1:4

The story of your heart is a discovery that God has taken you into his bedroom, he desires to share his most intimate moments with you and awaken your senses to the glory of his love.

For this love that has been planted in your heart is an intimacy beyond your wildest imagination. It is a reflection of the love that upholds the universe, it is a love birthed in infinite desire and consumed in intimate delight. It is the perfect love in the perfect relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is a love that longs to be shared and enjoyed. Boundless in its nature, relentless in its giving, fathomnless in its appreciation and bottomless in its dedication.

It is a love that bears all things, believes all things, endures all thing and is totally and utterly faithful.

It is a love that goes beyond doubt and failure and is captured in tiny glimpses in times of uttermost despair and disappointment.

Throughout history our Father’s tries to help us understand this love and in a tiny phrase to a chosen people who have constantly and relentlessly rejected his love for him and crafted their own hand made God’s forged from the mind and desires of their lusts, he writes from his heart, “Oh, how can I give up on you , Israel? How can I let you go?….My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows.” Hosea 11:8.

It is God’s overwhelming love that rips his heart apart, his overflowing compassion that works through his grace.

And this is the love that invites us into the intimate chamber of comsumation, the love that invites us into a romance of discovery, a love so immense, so intense, so fierce that it refuses to let failure, doubt, and lust stand in its way

The invitation is to run and embrace this all consuming love and let it take root and flourish in the garden of your heart.

“Your name is like the spreading fragrance of scented oils no wonder the young women love you ” Song of songs 1:3

God is looking for you. His fragrance is the spreading love that is reaching out to captivate your heart.

You don’t have to look for him he is drawing you.

He is awakening your heart to his love and the treasure of his grace. The spreading intoxicating fragrance of heaven is immersing you with the promise of his delight.

But the tragedy of our hearts is that we often settle for what we have instead of entering into all God has provided.

We settle in a place called perhaps.

Perhaps God will come through, perhaps he won’t, perhaps God will show up, perhaps he won’t. Perhaps God will be good to me, perhaps he won’t.

It is here in the realm of reason that we plant the seeds of unbelief in our hearts. It is where we can trust the faithfulness of God’s promises or doubt his goodness.

But God continues with us , he stays faithful, committed, trustworthy, he ministers his grace into our hearts.

He is our cloud of provision and our pillar of fire. And we are his priceless jewel, his unswerving delight.

“How pleasing is your fragrance .” Song of songs 1:2

In every persons heart lies a longing for connection, a desire to be cherished.

The deepest part of our heart truly knows that to be complete we have to live in the fullness of our creation.

God is constantly drawing us to him, his Holy Spirit is a rich fragrance that fills our senses with his rich embrace.

The discovery of this divine aroma awakens our hearts to the endless possibilities of life in Christ. It is realising that heaven has invaded your heart, is changing your beliefs and igniting your passion.

In every unguarded moment the Holy Spirit is working inside us revealing to us our beauty, our righteousness and our value to God through Christ.

It is this deep experience of divine love that draws us onward and keeps us safe.

For in Christ you have been found, taken in, embraced and held. His love alive in you is there to invigorate you with heaven and intensify the divine. Heaven has birthed itself in you and God’s will has been planted into you.

“Kiss and kiss me again, for your love is sweeter than wine.” Song of songs 1:1

Love is expressed with a kiss, it is conveyed with passion and it is offered in sacrifice.

Psalm 85:11 tells us “righteousness and peace have kissed.”

The kiss of the bridegroom is sweeter than wine. It is the intoxication of your heart, the banquet of grace that your heart desires. For your lover comes to intoxicate your heart with his love.

For you are the delight of God’s heart and with his kiss your heart is opened up to the passion of heaven. With his kiss righteousness and peace have been placed inside your heart.

It is here in the garden of our heart that we learn in time to trust his kiss. We begin to believe his love and trust his commitment to us. To rely on his words of grace spoken over our lives.

His kiss to us creates a burning passion that only his embrace will suffice. For we were created to know, feel, experience and revel in his love.

Your heart was created to respond to the love of Christ.

“Open to me my treasure, my darling, my dove, my perfect one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.” Song of songs 5:2

Within our hearts there is a treasure of truth. A treasure stored inside the garden of our belief system that cries out with passion and desire to be embraced. It yearns to be watered with the dew of heaven and it longs to be drenched with the victory of the cross.

The Holy Spirit calls out in our hearts that without Christ something is missing, that without Christ we are incomplete but in Christ all our desires have been met.

For above all else the Christian life is a love affair of the heart.

From the beginning of time God’s connection with mankind has been a heart connection. Every drop of dew that watered the garden of Eden each morning was a droplet of the grace of God poured out through the Holy Spirit. It was a physical demonstration of an inward reality.

The perfect son of God has in the New Covenant planted and rooted his abundant life into the good soil of your heart. You have become a field of harvest for all the ripe fruit of heaven. Your heart now lives in the eternal season of God’s favour.

You are nurtured, nourished and protected by the power of the Holy Spirit alive in you. Your heart is never disconnected from God and the spiritual rebirth of your heart produces the lavish fruit you need to sustain the rest of your life.

God has got hold of you and he will not let you go.