Introduction…
A very interesting Scripture introducing to us this person by the name Lucifer, son of the morning, gives us insight into the person behind all of our problems and troubles.
Isaiah 14:12-14
Compare this to what we read in…Genesis 1:26-27
Here is the reason why Lucifer, or the devil, hates mankind. He believes mankind has taken his rightful place in the kingdom of God.
One of the great verses in the New Testament is Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
The key phrase here is “and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”
Have you ever stopped to think that the purpose of your life is to bring pleasure to God?
We sometimes have it the other way around. We believe God exists to give us pleasure and blessing and whatever else we want at the snap of our fingers.
God’s delight is in his people.
The fall in the Garden of Eden brought the depravity upon humanity that took away God’s pleasure. It was Christ dying on the cross that reversed that depravity and brings us back into the pleasure of God.
Lucifer will do anything within his power to come between God and us. For us who are believers, the one who stands between Lucifer and us is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. That stand, I believe, is a defiant stand.
If I could only see what God sees when he looks at me, I would experience joy unspeakable and full of glory.
My problem is I have bought into the devil’s lie and believe that God is an angry God just looking for an opportunity to pounce upon me. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Lucifer sees this amazing relationship that I have with God, he is filled with jealousy and will do anything he can to undermine that.
The groom’s happiness is focused on the bride. The bride has his full attention.
This passage before us, Song of Solomon 7:1-9, can be summed up quite nicely in verse 6.
“How beautiful and how pleasing you are, my love! How happy you make me!”
For me to grasp this is to come into an understanding that goes beyond reason or logic, of the kind of relationship the groom desires with the bride.
The great joy of my life is giving God what he desires and what he wants out of me. The idea that I mean that much to God is beyond human comprehension.
In order to get to this and understand it fully there are three aspects of this that we need to understand.
I. The Spirit of Apprehension
Once I come into the family of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, I need to deal with certain apprehensions.
I believe that God forgives me, but I have a hard time believing that he forgets my past.
Jeremiah 31:34
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Hebrews 8:12
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
The enemy will always bring up the past, be sure of that. However, God will never bring up your past.
PRAISE GOD MY SINS ARE GONE
(N.B. Vandall)
You ask me why I’m happy so I’ll just tell you why,
Because my sins are gone;
And when I meet the scoffers who ask me where they are,
I say, “My sins are gone.”
CHORUS:
They’re underneath the blood on the cross of Calvary,
As far removed as darkness is from dawn;
In the sea of God’s forgetfulness, that’s good enough for me,
Praise God, my sins are gone!
The spirit of apprehension leaves when I believe that God is exactly who he says he is.
II. The Spirit of Appreciation
Once I deal with the spirit of apprehension, it brings me to the spirit of appreciation. When I begin to see what God has done and is doing for me, I have the spirit of appreciation.
This appreciation is when I begin to realize God’s involvement in my life. God uses everything in my life to bring me to the place of understanding and appreciating his love for me.
This appreciation covers many things.
Answered Prayer
Blessings in My Life
Grace and Strength Each Day
Etc.
This of course is the basis of our praise. We are thankful for what God is doing for us and in us. We give him the glory for all that is happening in our life that glorifies him.
As I read the Scriptures, I get a new focus on this appreciation. Some of the things that I thought were just happenstance in my life I now begin to see that God is deliberately doing things in my life for his honor and glory.
I think of Joseph. All of the hardships, trials and tribulations that he went through was to prepare him so God could put him where God could use him.
This appreciation embraces the fact of God’s intentional creation of me. I am not an accident.
This was the lesson Jeremiah learned.
Jeremiah 1:4-5
4Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
5Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
This view of intentional creation puts evolution in the trashcan.
My value is not in my past, but rather in God’s future for me. As I grow to appreciate him more and more each day, I begin to understand my place in his heart.
III. The Spirit of Adoration
Once I deal with my spirit of apprehension which brings me to a spirit of appreciation there is one more level for me to achieve. That is the spirit of adoration.
The spirit of appreciation focuses on what God has done and is doing for me.
The spirit of adoration focuses on God himself.
I fear that few Christians really get to this point of adoration. They can tell you all of the things they appreciate God for, and that as well and good. But there is another phase well beyond this one.
This is where I praise God for who he truly is.
Adoration is not based upon logic or reason. Appreciation is a result of logically seeing how God is working in my life and what he is doing. But adoration cannot be achieved that way.
The spirit of adoration is the direct work of the Holy Spirit in my life once he has dealt with all of the other stuff. Once he has dealt with all of my past and brought me to put them all on the altar and give myself completely and absolutely to God, I then can enter into the spirit of adoration.
If you read through the Psalms, you will find this to be the case with David. Perhaps he had his flaws, as we all do, but he was brought to this spirit of adoration.
“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” (Psalms 42:1).
David longed for God himself, not just what God could do for him.
Albert Benjamin Simpson (1843-1919) put it this way:
Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling,
Now it is His Word;
Once His gift I wanted,
Now, the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing,
Now Himself alone.
All in all forever,
Jesus will I sing;
Everything in Jesus,
And Jesus everything.
It is wonderful to come into his presence, just to come into the presence of God.
St. Augustine said, “Thou has created us for Thyself and we are restless until we rest in Thee.”
The sooner I understand that, the sooner I will begin to forget my past and focus on the only thing that matters, the Lord Jesus Christ right now.
My connection to Jesus Christ is not so much what he can do for me. Rather, it is what he means to me. Things come and go. Things can never follow me into eternity. I need to focus on those things that will carry with me into eternity. The only thing is the Lord Christ.
This comes as divine illumination that floods my heart with the glory of heaven. This is what makes my life worth living each day.
Conclusion…
My love for God is based upon his love for me.
The greatest goal in my life is to enjoy God as much as he enjoys me. When I begin to understand what he thinks of me and how he loves me, I will begin to understand what it really means to be the “Bride of Christ.”
