Contents

SECTION ONE: FURNACE OF LOVE

1. God’s Fiery Love Song: “Face To Face”

SECTION TWO: THE CROSS

2. Three Dimensions Of God’s Love

3. The Cross: Invitation To Love

4. Embracing Death

5. Sharing In His Sufferings

SECTION THREE: MOTIVATIONS OF THE HEART

6. Purifed Heart Motivations

7. I Want To Be With Him

8. I Want To Know Him

9. I Want To Please Him

10. I Want His Honor

SECTION FOUR: FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD

11. Three Stages Of Consecration

12. Little Children, Young Men, Fathers

13. Partnership With God

14. A Servant, Or A Friend?

15. Obedience To His Purposes

16. Becoming His Friend

17. The Bridegroom’s Friend

18. Friendship With God: The Pain And The Glory

SECTION FIVE: THE SONG OF SOLOMON

19. Beginning Fervency

20. Her Spiritual Journey Begins

21. She Embraces His Disciplines

22. His Affirmation

23. Fully Mature Love

SECTION SIX: THE GREATEST IS LOVE

24. God’s Jealous Love

25. The Love Hermeneutic

26. Perfected In Love

27. A Simple Prayer

28. The Ultimate Pinnacle

 Chapter One
God’s Fiery Love
The most sublime theme in all of Scripture is the love of God. There is
nothing higher or nobler toward which we can direct our meditation. God’s love
is altogether wonderful, beyond our complete comprehension, and entirely
inexhaustible in its scope and intensity.
To know and experience the love of Christ is the happy and eternal pursuit of
all God’s saints. It is an ocean that beckons our exploration, a massive sun that
blazes like the face of God Himself. Its gravitational force derives from its sheer
immensity, pulling the awe-struck believer into the heart of its blazing inferno.
River Of Love
Love is the thing that moves and mobilizes God. It is the energy source which
empowers all of His activity toward us. Should you tap into God’s divine power
source, you will discover that it is a rush-flow of electric love that will drive and
carry you along as well.
There is a river that flows from the throne of God; the Bible calls it “the river
of life.” But I am suggesting that its current is “love.” The outflow of God’s life
is propelled toward us by His love.
I do not envision this river coming to us as a serpentine, meandering, lazy
river that barely ambles along as it shuffles toward mankind. No, it is a swift-
flowing, sweep-you-off-your-feet kind of torrential current. Like the churning
waters of a flood-stage river, the love of God is unstoppable. It is violent,
overwhelming, ruinous--it is destructive.
“Destructive?” someone might ask. “How is God’s love destructive?” To be
straightforward, it was the love of God that took Jesus to His death. It is this love
which has inextricably captured the hearts of the martyrs over the centuries.
When the love of God pulls you into its vortex, it will very possibly lead you to
your death, too.
Ah, blessed death! which produces everlasting life.
Swept Away
Paul tells us that he was “compelled” by this love. “For the love of Christ
compels us,” he writes in Second Corinthians 5:14. This New Testament word
“compel” means literally “to hold together” or “to grip tightly.”
It is the word that is used at Jesus’ arrest to describe the manner in which they
“held” Him (Luke 22:63). So in using this word “compels,” Paul is basically
saying, “I got arrested, bound, and incarcerated by this love.”
I can hear Paul testifying, “I decided to make the love of God my singular
pursuit. But when I found it, His love grabbed hold of me, swept me off my feet,
caught me up in its vice-grip, and now my life is completely out of my control. I
am being propelled forward by a force greater than my ability to resist. I have no
choice; this love is squeezing the very life out of me.”
Paul is saying, “I am in a headlock. I have been captured--I am a slave to a
love that is beyond my imagination. The love of God has taken hold of me, and I
am no longer my own.”
Be warned: step out into the river of God’s love, and your life will careen out
of control too. If you surrender yourself to the current of God’s love, you too
will lose all control to a love that may take you, as it did Peter, a way in which
you don’t want to go (see John 21:18).
The Unity Within The Godhead
We understand from the Scriptures that the Godhead is comprised of three
distinct Persons--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--who abide in such incredible
unity of heart and purpose and understanding that they are said to be One. Their
oneness is so complete that we do not have three Gods, but one God. This is the
mystery of the Trinity.
What force would be so great that it would take three eternally self-existent
Persons and meld them together into such a cohesive unity that they call
themselves One?
The fusion of three distinct personalities into one Godhead would require a
force greater than the gravity of the largest stars. It would require a gravity
greater than that of what astronomers call a “black hole,” the gravity of which is
thought to be so powerful that even light rays are not able to escape it, and thus it
appears as a formless hole in the expanses of space.
What strength of gravity would have such an inward pull that it would not
even allow light to escape its clutches? And yet the even more profound question
is, what sort of gravity would fuse the three Persons of the Godhead into One?
This force that unites the Godhead--greater than the gravitational pull of the
most powerfully imploding stars--is none other than love.
Love is the thing that binds the Trinity together.
Jesus pointed to this love that exists within the Godhead when He said, “I in
them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world
may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me”
(John 17:23).
Imagine it: the Father’s heart is drawn toward you in the same intensity of
passion with which He loves the Son! It is an immeasurably awesome gravity
that has pulled the Son into the heart of the Father, the Spirit unto the Son, and
the Father unto the Spirit. This love that joins the Trinity together is beyond all
human comprehension. It is eternal in its intensity, its longevity, and its
dimensions.
And here’s the incredible part. This immeasurable force, this flaming love,
reserved in its exclusivity throughout eternity to just three Persons, has now
chosen to reach out and pull in a fourth--you!
Even as Nebuchadnezzar looked into a flaming furnace centuries ago and saw
the form of a fourth person in the fire (Daniel 3:25), so too there is a flaming
furnace of eternal love into which the angels now look, and they see the form of
a fourth! There is a dimension of love that for all eternity had been reserved to
just three, and now the cherubim and living creatures gaze with rapt wonder as
they behold the form of a fourth in that eternal furnace of divine love. And this
fourth has to them the form and appearance of the Bride of Christ.
 Chapter Two
Three Dimensions Of God’s Love
The Bride of Christ has gained access to the love that blazes within the
Godhead through the cross of Jesus Christ.
Not long ago, as I was reading the accounts of Christ’s passion in the Gospels,
I began to pray, “Lord, show me Your cross.” I had a great sense of having but a
limited understanding of all that Christ accomplished in His crucifixion, and a
deep desire for the meaning of the cross to become my personal possession.
As I prayed in this way, I began to see that the entire point of the cross and
suffering of Jesus is, in a word, love. The purpose of the cross is to demonstrate
and incite love. It is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love, and it is the
primary incentive God uses to awaken love in the hearts of sincere believers.
The cross displays three wondrous dimensions of God’s love, and the first one
I want to point to is this: the love of Christ for us.
Christ’s Love For Us
When we behold the cross, we are impacted with how much Christ Jesus must
love us! Truly He is like the merchant in the parable who sacrificed everything in
order to purchase one pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45-46). To Christ, the
redemption of His Bride is of supreme value and was worth the sacrifice of
Calvary.
The Scriptures point to Christ’s great love for us:
• Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had
come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own
who were in the world, He loved them to the end (John 13:1).
• Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Romans 8:35).
• For the love of Christ compels us (2 Corinthians 5:14).
• To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be
filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).
• To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood
(Revelation 1:5).
Christ’s great love for mankind is seen on the cross during His two brief
conversations with others:
1) To the dying thief on the cross: “Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to
you, today you will be with Me in Paradise’” (Luke 23:43).
2) To His disciple John and His mother: “When Jesus therefore saw His
mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother,
‘Woman, behold your son!’ Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’
And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26-27).
Jesus could have thought to Himself, “I don’t have energy to pay attention to
these people. I’m in too much pain, I’ve got to concentrate entirely on enduring
to the end. I’m saving the whole world right now, and I can’t be distracted with
one or two people who happen to be here at this moment.”
Instead, Jesus reached out to His fellow man despite His own personal
anguish. His great love extended past the horrendous pain of Calvary and
touched those who looked to Him.
Christ’s example of reaching out in the midst of great personal pain continues
to be a great model for all believers. Even when we’re hurting ourselves, the
love of Christ wants to burst forth from our hearts to the needy who surround us.
The cross is the graphic emblem of Christ’s love for us, and yet when we take
a closer look, we see that it points even more vividly to yet another dimension of
Christ’s love. The love of Jesus for mankind is not the most gripping love that
the cross displays. Many have enjoyed the words to the popular Christian song,
“When He was on the cross, I was on His mind,” and yet I’m not convinced
that’s true.
While suffering on the cross, Jesus wasn’t thinking primarily about us. The
evidence suggests that He was thinking primarily about His Father. This is the
second great love that the cross displays: Jesus’ love for the Father.
Jesus’ Love For The Father
The mutual passion that exists within the Godhead is so intense that Jesus was
willing to pay any price in order to fulfill the request of His Father. The death of
the cross was the Father’s will, and so Jesus offered to His Father these great
words of love before His arrest: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will”
(Matthew
26:39). Jesus was basically saying, “I love You so much, My Father, I’ll do
anything for You!”
In Gethsemane, Jesus established with finality His willingness to go to
Calvary because of His passion for the Father. Gethsemane had nothing to do
with the devil.
The devil had long since given up trying to entice Jesus; all he could do now
was try to kill Him. Gethsemane had nothing to do with overcoming temptation;
it had to do with the love of the Lamb for the Father as He embraced the Father’s
will. Gethsemane was an exchange of love at its deepest levels.
 To endure the horror of God’s wrath, Jesus had to have a high degree of
mental focus while impaled to the cross. To the end, His focus was upon one
Person, the Father. This is seen in the three statements He directed exclusively to
His Father during His crucifixion:
• “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34).
• “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).
• “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46).
It is almost inconceivable that, in the face of the pain Jesus suffered on the
cross, and the fact that He had the power at His immediate disposal to be
released from the cross in an instant, He chose to stay on the cross in
incomprehensible agony. There can be only one reason for such focus, for such
toleration of suffering.
Jesus was willing to endure the pain of Calvary because there was something
to be gained that was greater than the pain. “Who for the joy that was set before
Him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). What joyful thing did He look forward
to which enabled Him to endure the cross? Someone might suggest, “It was a
Bride! Jesus was looking forward to the joy of redeeming a wife to Himself.”
That answer is partly true, but it’s not the primary joy that was set before the
Lord. Above all else, Jesus looked ahead to the joy of receiving His Father’s
affirmation--the explosive, extravagant delight the Father would abundantly
lavish upon Him in glory. The greatest joy He could know would be to hear His
Father say, “Well done, My Son, I am well pleased with You! You have done My
will.”
The joy of His Father’s approving embrace was, for our Lord Jesus, worth all
the pain of the cross.
Jesus had the power to come off His cross, and we too have the power to
come down off our own cross. What is it that will keep us impaled to the
crucified life? Nothing short of overflowing love for the Son of God, and a
passion for the love which He is capable of bestowing. If we truly value the
honor that comes from God, we will chase after the crucified life; it is the
pathway to receiving His delight.
In His heart Jesus was saying, “Father, I love You so much that if going to the
cross pleases Your heart, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to please You!” Thus, the
cross is a passionate display of the Son’s love for the Father. The cross cries out,
“Anything for love!”
The Father’s Love For The World
The third great love that the cross displays is the love of the Father for the
world. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John
3:16).
If you want to know what God’s love for you is like, behold the cross. The
cross is the Father’s way of saying to the world, “This is how much I love you!”
It is easy for us to suppose that God must hate the world. But to the contrary,
He has great passion for the world. It’s true that God hates the world system, but
He desperately loves the people of the world.
The intensity of God’s love for the world is better appreciated when we
consider God’s vehement love for His Son. “This is My beloved Son in whom I
am well pleased!” To use human terminology, the Father is head-over-heels
crazy over His Son! To God, His Son is in a league all His own. The Father has
many mighty and holy attendants in His heavenly courts, but none enjoys the
status and privilege of the Son. He ranks above the entire created order and is the
recipient of the Father’s most exclusive and eternal affections.
There has never been nor ever will be a force greater than the love which
draws the heart of the Father into the heart of the Son.
So in the light of the Father’s fiery love for His Son, we must ask the
question, “What would cause the Father, who loves His only begotten Son so
intensely, to crucify His Son and then pour the full punishment for mankind’s sin
upon Him?”
It seems incredulous--almost preposterous. That God would turn on His Son,
the object of His most intimate affections, and consign Him to a vicious and
torturous death? Unthinkable! And yet--it happened!
“Why?” the angels ask.
“For what reason is the Father doing this to His only begotten?” the heavenly
hosts ask of each other.
The astounding answer is found in these simple words, “For God so loved the
world.” He loved you and me so much that He nailed His precious Son to a tree,
beaten and scourged, and then lacerated Him with His own infinite wrath against
sin. The implications of suffering the Father’s wrath against sin are so horrific
that no one but God Himself could bear such agony. No one has suffered, dear
friends, as much as God has. All this pain--because He loves you so very much!
The cross was the best way the Father knew to express to the world how
much He loves us.
To endure the suffering of His Son, and to pour out His wrath upon Him until
the vial was empty, the Father had to have focus. What was the thing upon which
the Father focussed that enabled Him to endure throughout the suffering of His
Son? The Father’s focus was on us. Through every excruciating moment the
Father kept reminding Himself, “We must pay the full price for their redemption-
-because I love them so much.” The Father’s focus, during Calvary’s horror, was
on us.
God gave us a picture of what this was like for Him when He asked Abraham
to kill his only son, Isaac. We’re able to imagine what it must have been like for
Abraham to lift a knife above his son’s body--the only son his wife Sarah had
borne to him in their old age. A knife was cutting through his own soul as he
prepared to plunge the blade through Isaac’s heart. God asked Abraham to do
this so that we might hear the Father’s heartbeat, “This image gives you a
glimpse into what it was like for Me to kill My only begotten Son.”
Such pain is endured only when there is something to be gained that is greater
than the pain. What, in the eyes of the Father, was to be gained that was worth
such pain? It was the Bride that He would present to His Son.
I can imagine the Father thinking, “Son, hang in there. Hold on just a little
longer. Drink the cup all the way to the bottom because it will be worth it! I’m
telling You, Son, I’m preparing a Bride for you. She will be so beautiful, and O,
You will love her so much! She will understand You, You’ll be able to relate to
her, she will be a co-equal partner with You, she’ll be compatible with you in
every way, and she will be like You. What’s more, she will love You with the
same love with which I love You. Oh yes, My Son, this Bride will enrapture
Your heart. She will be worth these few brief hours of pain. You must persevere
to the death.”
The Father could endure Calvary because He saw a Bride for His Son. You
see, the Father is so crazy about His Son that He is in the business of preparing
as much glory as He possibly can for His Son. He is ardently committed to
garnering lavish affection for the Son of His love. During His Son’s suffering,
the Father saw the love that would be cultivated within the heart of the Bride for
His Son.
That’s all the Father wants--to see love poured on His Son.
This is the Father’s creative search, to find increasingly glorious ways for the
Son to receive the love and adoration that is due Him. The Father looked ahead
and said, “Son, believe Me, it will be worth it. Not only will she move Your
heart with her beauty, but O, she will love You! She will love you with an eternal
love! Trust Me, Son--it will be worth it!”
The cross extravagantly cries, “Anything for love.”
 The great issue for mankind is this: “Will you love Him?” It’s not simply,
“Will you believe Him?” because even the demons believe and tremble. The
haunting question of all time continues to be the one that Jesus posed to Simon
Peter after Peter had denied Him. Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love Me?” This is
the great soul-searching question that each one of us must answer.
Jesus didn’t die so that people would dissect and analyze the benefits of the
gospel, and then based on their assessment of the data make a rational choice to
believe that Jesus is the Son of God. No, He died for much more than that. He
died for your love. He will never be satisfied with anything less than your
freewill, noncoerced, voluntary affections and desires.
 Chapter Three
The Cross: Invitation To Love
The Pinnacle Passion
We tend to rate the significance of an event or thing according to the level of
emotion we felt at the time. The highest points in our lives have been those times
of greatest pleasure or deepest joy; the lowest times have been those moments of
greatest heartache, grief, and pain. We always remember the highest highs and
the lowest lows. Extremely emotional events will always remain etched in our
memories.
In the same way, there is one event in the history of all eternity that will
forever stand out to God as the most significant event for Him. That one event is
the crucifixion. There is nothing -- not even eternity it self -- that will ever erase
from God’s mind the slightest fraction of the vivid reality of Calvary’s horror.
We have no idea how the Father’s heart wept and heaved over His Son, as Christ
bore the wrath of sin. It is the deepest pain God has ever or ever will know.
God is as passionate today about the cross as He was during the six hours of
Christ’s impalement. When it comes to the cross, God is anything but stoic or
unaffected. Every remembrance of the cross stirs up infinite zeal and passion
within His breast. The cross is the ultimate expression of how powerful God’s
emotions toward us really are.
God doesn’t relate to impassive Christians. He identifies with Christians
whose hearts move and stir and cry within them. There is nothing in the way the
Triune God has ever related to mankind that is stoic or impassive or unaffected
or staid. The cross demands an extravagant and abandoned response of grateful
affection from the people of God. God is interested in nothing less.
The Ultimate Expression Of Love
If you want to be awakened in your fervency for Jesus, look at the cross. As
you gaze upon the cross, where God’s love is so graphically displayed, you will
be awakened to a fuller, deeper bridal love. As you behold His passion and
suffering, you will get swept up in the current of His fiery love.
The cross was God’s best way of saying, “I love you.” Without words, the
cross speaks the language of love. It renders love a vocabulary -- it’s the ultimate
expression of love.
The cross is the most articulate and passionate way to say, “I love you.” This
is the reason why Jesus invites us to take up our cross. By calling us to take up
our cross, Jesus is inviting us to love Him with everything within us. He is
saying, “I invite you to love Me in the same way that I love you. I am giving you
the opportunity to return to Me the kind of love I am pouring upon you.”
Thus, the cross is an invitation to love. To take up my cross is to enter into a
reciprocating love relationship with Jesus of awesome proportions. When I take
up my cross, I am qualifying for a depth of love relationship that is unparalleled
with any love relationship I’ve ever imagined. I am opening myself to God’s
dimension of love, and the cross is the best way to express this kind of fiery
God-love.
When Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow Me,” sometimes we
imagine such a lifestyle as the most morbid and boring existence a human being
might possibly entertain. But quite to the contrary, when we take up our cross at
Christ’s command we find ourselves catapulted into a dimension of love that is
altogether sublime, more wonderful than any earthly love we’ve ever
experienced, and so fulfilling that for the first time in our lives we feel like we’re
really starting to live.
The call to the cross is not something to be dreaded and avoided, but it is an
invitation to the most exciting and fulfilling existence that man can possibly
enjoy. You will lose everything--and you’ll gain everything!
Christ’s Incredible Offer
On one occasion, Jesus was approached by a young aristocratic Jew who felt
like he was missing something in his spiritual life. This devout young man had
adhered to the commandments all his life, and was wondering what else he
needed to do to inherit eternal life. Let’s look at the story:
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him,
and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"
So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that
is, God. You know the commandments: ’Do not commit adultery,’ ’Do not
murder,’ ’Do not steal,’ ’Do not bear false witness,’ ’Do not defraud,’ ’Honor
your father and your mother.’” And he answered and said to Him, "Teacher, all
these things I have kept from my youth." Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him,
and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and
give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the
cross, and follow
Me." But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great
possessions (Mark 10:17-22).
The writer tells us, “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” What Jesus is
about to say are words spoken from a heart of genuine love for this young man.
And what are these words of eternal love? “Sell whatever you have and give to
the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and
follow Me.” (v.21)
“What?” our human nature wants to respond. “You call that love? How can it
be a loving thing to ask someone to sell all his possessions?”
When we read Christ’s calls to discipleship and taking up the cross, we tend
to hear a tone of voice that is almost mean-spirited.
“If I have to die,” we imagine Jesus grousing, “then you have to die too.” But
this caricature is far from the heart of Christ’s call to this rich young ruler.
What we sometimes fail to realize is that His call to the cross is an appeal of
love. More than that, it is an appeal to love. It is an invitation to a love
relationship. “If you are willing to put away all your other loves,” Jesus is
actually telling this young man with many possessions, “you will enter into the
delight of a love relationship with Me.” Jesus loved this man so much that He
actually unveiled to Him the glorious secret of an extravagant love relationship
with the altogether Lovely One--the Son of God. Every call of Christ to self-
denial and discipleship is in fact an invitation to a depth of love relationship that
exceeds all our expectations or dreams.
This young man went away sorrowful, thinking that Jesus had offered him a
lousy deal. When you understand what Jesus was actually offering this fellow,
it’s almost unbelievable to conceive that he would turn it down. To illustrate,
suppose a homeless man living in the slums of Mexico City happens to win the
New York Lottery. In order to receive the $10 million he has just won, however,
he is told that he must relocate to the United States. “What?” the fellow cries.
“I’ve got to leave my hometown? You’re telling me I have to leave my
neighborhood I know, and all my friends? I grew up here; my family is all here;
everything I know is right here. The sacrifice seems so great, how can I do it?”
So the fellow turns down the $10 million because he thinks they’re trying to
deprive him of something. That’s what the rich young ruler did with Jesus. He
thought Jesus was trying to deprive him of something, when in actuality, Jesus
was making him an incredible offer of love.
Jesus calls us to cast aside all worldly interests and to take up our cross and
follow Him because in His infinite love He knows the benefits that await those
who do so. You’ve got to see it as a love appeal. To accept His call to the cross is
to embark upon an eternal love adventure with the God of the universe.
An Equally Fervent Exchange
 There is nothing Christ wants more than a Bride who will love Him with the
same kind of fiery zeal with which He loves her.
The letter to the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3 is one of the most
terrifying passages in the entire Bible. Look again at what Jesus said to these
believers:
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were
cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will
vomit you out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16).
In my human understanding I want to respond, “Never, Lord! Surely You
shall not do such a thing!” My natural mind is appalled that Christ would so
peremptorily consign a believer to such a fate, simply because he was half-
hearted in his commitment.
But then I look at the cross. And I see there a love that is ablaze with such a
flaming fire that even death can’t extinguish it.
O the fiery depths of this love that hangs there, mutilated and bleeding, and
suffers willfully in order to win my love!
Now, shall I look at that burning love on the cross, and lazily turn away to
find another object with which to share my affections? After seeing the intensity
of His love for me, shall I reciprocate with a milquetoast, insipid, inane, sleepy
token of the leftovers of my love? Would that kind of fiery love want to receive a
half-hearted, yawn-in-your-face love in return?
“NO!” declares He whose eyes are ablaze with an inflamed jealousy. “That
kind of love is obnoxious to Me,” He says. “I will vomit it out of My mouth.”
Getting To Know Christ
If you really want to get to know Jesus, you need to gain a preoccupation with
His cross. The cross is the only way to really get to know Him. This is what Paul
pointed to:
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship
of His sufferings, being conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10).
We all want to get to know Jesus better, but we want to do so in a pathway
that doesn’t include suffering and death. Such a pathway simply doesn’t exist.
There’s only one way to get to know Jesus, and that is through the cross.
We prefer to behold Jesus as He feeds the five thousand, or as He heals the
sick, or as He walks on the water, or as He raises Lazarus from the dead. We find
those images much more savory than the cross. But the cross is the wisdom and
power of God, for it captures and portrays the essence of our beloved Lord.
“Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me’” (Luke 9:23). If you want to
know Jesus, you’ve got to embrace the cross and “go after Him.” This is not a
leisurely keeping of pace behind Jesus, but it is an all-consuming, driving pursuit
to catch up with Jesus. Jesus reveals Himself to the one who takes up his cross
and ch ases after Him.
You won’t get to know Christ by doing a research project in a theological
library. You won’t get to know Christ by meditating in isolation. You’ll get to
know the crucified Christ by sharing in His suffering. You must take up your
cross and be crucified with Him in order to know Him as the crucified Christ.
This is the motivation of taking up one’s cross: “I want to know Him!”
 Chapter Four
Embracing Death
The Offence Of The Cross
A very noticeable shift took place at one point in Jesus’ earthly ministry. This
shift took place at the height of His popularity with the masses. Multiplied
thousands thronged Him wherever He went, and everybody thought He was
wonderful. Peter had just confessed to Him, “You are the Christ!” Jesus owns the
appellation, and the disciples are beginning to realize what place in history they
have come to inherit. It’s at this moment of energy and excitement and
momentum that Jesus immediately changes gears, and the thrust of His ministry
takes on a dramatic change. The following passage records this shift:
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to
Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes,
and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began
to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to
Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men”
(Matthew 16:21-23).
Up to this point, Jesus hadn’t whispered a hint about suffering, or being
killed, or the cross. From this point on, He returns to this theme again and again.
It was as Jesus shifted gears and began to talk about the cross that His popularity
immediately began to diminish dramatically.
The disciples couldn’t understand this kind of “cross talk.” It made no sense
to them, in the light of Jesus’ burgeoning popularity, for Him to talk about being
killed in Jerusalem. According to their script, that’s not how the story was
supposed to be written.
Peter was so disturbed by Jesus’ “cross talk” that He immediately began to
rebuke Jesus. “Don’t talk like that, Lord--nothing like that is going to happen to
You!”
Jesus responded by saying, “You offend Me.” He was basically saying, “To
suggest anything but suffering offends Me.” We, in contrast, are all too easily
offended at the suggestion that we might have to suffer. It’s because we still
haven’t awakened to the relational possibilities with Christ that open to those
who suffer with Him.
The Wisdom Of The Cross
 The wisdom of the cross lies, in part, in this truth: there is no sufferer who
cannot identify with the cross. No matter how excruciating the pain, every
sufferer can lift his eyes to the cross of Christ and find comfort.
You can take the gospel to the gulag prisons of Siberia; you can take the
gospel to the refugees of Rwanda; you can take the gospel to the street children
of Brazil. There is no one who can curl up their lip and say they’ve suffered
more than Jesus Christ. The cross extends hope to the most lonely sufferer.
And the cross transcends all age barriers. There is no child mature enough to
speak who is incapable of understanding the cross. From the youngest age,
children grasp the stark horror of the cross and understand how much Jesus must
love them.
One of the chief purposes of suffering is to point us to the cross. When you’re
suffering, it’s almost an instinctive response to look at the cross of Christ for
comfort and consolation. Suffering is redeemed when we allow it to fix our gaze
upon the cross.
The Anointing Of Death
It is as we embrace the death of the cross that the anointing is released in our
lives. We do not choose the time or the way in which the cross comes before us.
Such a death -- death to self, goals, ambitions, desires, the praise of men,
pleasures, worldly distractions, creature comforts -- can be embraced only by the
sovereign drawing of the Lord to that higher plane. We cannot just decide to die,
for we are too full of ourselves. The Holy Spirit puts the cry in our hearts for
more of the cross, and then He graciously answers that prayer.
Be ready, there’s nothing more painful than death. And there’s nothing more
glorious than the life He can bring out of death. "Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, who...became obedient to the point of death, even the
death of the cross" (Philippians 2:5,8).
Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of
Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the
fragrance of the oil. Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who
would betray Him, said, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred
denarii and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but
because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put
in it. But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial”
(John 12:3-7).
This story illustrates how the embracing of the cross releases a greater
anointing in our lives. It says that Mary “anointed” Jesus for the day of His
burial. Jesus was anointed to die. This fragrant oil represents the anointing of the
Holy Spirit. The point is, when we fully embrace the cross and share in Christ’s
death, the anointing of the Holy Spirit comes upon us as well.
Where death is at work, there comes a greater release of the anointing. It’s
when we’re full of ourselves (our own life) that we constrict the anointing, and
so have to beg harder. When death is not at work in us, we try to get the
anointing by praying harder.
If you’re dead to self you’re safe -- God can entrust an anointing to you.
Paul came to realize that the apostolic call was a call to a greater death. He
said, "Death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” The higher the calling,
the greater the death.
Sometimes we tend to think of the cross as something horrible to bear, but
what must be seen instead is the incredible flow of life and anointing that pours
through the one who identifies with Christ’s death.
The Church At Corinth
When Paul wrote about death being at work in him, most of his comments in
that regard were written to the church at Corinth. To understand the implications
of why Paul wrote about death to the Corinthians, we need to take a look at the
particular challenges the Corinthians faced in their ministry.
Among all the New Testament churches, the church at Corinth is unique in
that it enjoyed the greatest amount of freedom from persecution, oppression,
suffering, and distress. Their challenges had much more to do with that of facing
a hedonistic society. Corinth was imbued with a libertarian spirit. That’s the
mindset that says, “It’s your thing, do what you want to do.” The people of
Corinth were fun-loving, pleasure-seeking, and gave each other a lot of space to
pursue whatever turned them on. Thus, there was a great deal of toleration
toward the Christians in Corinth.
In this atmosphere of freedom, the Corinthian church grew quickly. Their
worship services were quite powerful. If you were to visit the church at Corinth
for a congregational meeting, here are some dynamics you would have expected
to experience:
1. You would notice they were strong believers (1 Corinthians 4:10).
2. You would witness the prolific exercise of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians
1:7), which would include the evidence of prophecy, healings, and miracles.
3. You would enjoy great teaching (1 Corinthians 1:12). They had a flow of
such outstanding teachers through that church that they even had arguments over
who was the best teacher. They were well-fed and full (1 Corinthians 4:8).
 4. You would notice that the believers were enjoying great prosperity (1
Corinthians 4:8). (Too bad Paul refused to receive a single offering while there;
he could have made out pretty good.)
5. They were very tolerant and merciful to where people were at (1
Corinthians 5:1-2). They made everyone feel welcome and comfortable -- to the
point of even tolerating teachers of a different gospel (2 Corinthians 11:4).
6. The church was theologically sound and orthodox in practice and
tradition (1 Corinthians 11:2).
7. You would witness great liberty for personal expression (1 Corinthians
11:21; 14:26).
8. The atmosphere of their gatherings was electric with an air of vitality and
a real sense of life (1 Corinthians 4:12).
9. They were very zealous (2 Corinthians 7:11; 9:2).
10. You would find corporate worship to be a high priority. At their request,
Paul addressed more dynamics of corporate worship to this church than to any
other church he wrote.
My point is this: Of all the New Testament churches, the church at Corinth
probably carried the greatest resemblance to the church in America. Thus, Paul’s
message to the Corinthian church is especially relevant to the American church.
A Current Message For America
Listen, America--pay attention to the message of 1 and 2 Corinthians!
There is an emphasis in 1 & 2 Corinthians that speaks strongly to us today.
This theme is present in some of Paul’s other epistles, but not with the same
frequency and intensity.
I am referring to Paul’s emphasis on dying for the sake of the gospel. The
letters to Corinth contain the bulk of Paul’s “theology of death.” This is not the
death to sin that Romans deals with. This is a death to good things, to normal
things, to healthy things -- all for the sake of the extension of the kingdom.
Paul didn’t have to talk to the Thessalonians about dying. Through the
extreme persecution they faced, the Thessalonians knew a lot already about
dying. But he did talk to the prosperous Corinthians about dying.
The Corinthian believers -- man, they were living. They had one of the most
exciting churches going. They had freedom, energy, and momentum. And it’s to
this church that Paul writes about death.
Here are the primary verses from Corinthians which represent Paul’s theology
of death:
• You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings
without us--and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with
you! For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned
to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to
men (1 Corinthians 4:8-9).
• I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die
daily (1 Corinthians 15:31).
• For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which
came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so
that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves,
that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who
delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He
will still deliver us (2 Corinthians 1:8-10).
• Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life
of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always
delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in
our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you (2 Corinthians
4:10-12).
• As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as
chastened, and yet not killed (2 Corinthians 6:9).
Paul’s message in these verses must catch the ear of American believers
today. Paul is saying, “You have so much; you are rich financially and rich in
teaching. Already you are reigning in this life. The difference between you and
us apostles is, we’re still laying our lives down for the gospel. Death is working
in our lives on a daily basis, while you bask in the wealth of your attainments in
Christ. Is this the time to enjoy your comforts in Christ when others have not yet
heard the gospel? No, my friends, this is not a time to live; this is a time to die.
This is a time to lay your lives down for the cause of Christ.”
That’s why Paul says, “Therefore, I urge you, imitate me” (1 Corinthians
4:16). I have been gripped and convicted personally at how little my life
resembles Paul’s. He described his lifestyle in this way: “To the present hour we
both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless” (1
Corinthians 4:11). What will it take for my life to be described with those same
words? Nothing short of a radical embracing of Christ’s call to the cross.
There is no greater way we can express the fiery intensity of our love for
Christ than to lay our lives down for the sake of the gospel.
 Chapter Five
Sharing In His Sufferings
Wanting To Suffer
Look again at Philippians 3:10, “that I may know Him and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His
death.” In saying, “that I may know...the fellowship of His sufferings,” Paul is
essentially saying, “I want to suffer.” He’s saying, “As much as I want to know
Christ and the power of His resurrection, I also want to share in Christ’s
sufferings.”
“Why, Paul? Why would you want to suffer? Are you a masochist?”
“No,” Paul would respond. “I don’t enjoy pain. I’m not motivated toward
pain, but I am motivated toward Him. I want to know Him! And I realize that the
only way to get to know Him is by sharing in the fellowship of His sufferings,
being conformed to His death.”
Wow! Paul wasn’t simply talking about a willingness to embrace suffering
(“Lord, I’m willing to suffer, if it should be Your will”), but he actually spoke of
a longing to share in Christ’s sufferings.
Paul was basically saying, “Bring on the pain! Let me suffer! Let’s get on
with it!” Not because he was a self-mutilator, but because he had an
overwhelming cry in his heart to get to know Christ better.
Paul had a revelation of the love of Christ! And for as much as He saw, He
realized there was so much more revelation to be had.
So he said, “To gain more of that love, I will run into the crucified life.” He
had become addicted to a love that would lead him to his death. I can hear the
great apostle crying, “I’ll do anything to gain this love of Christ!”
“Being conformed to his death” (Phil. 3:10). The goal of my life should be to
approximate more and more the agony of His cross. Just look at His cross, at His
bloody, convulsing figure--who do you know, among all His followers, that
comes close to resembling that picture? We look more like Barabbas than Jesus.
Like Barabbas, we’ve been set free, and we carry our banners through the
streets, celebrating our freedom--while Jesus hangs alone on the cross. “The
sting of death is gone!” we sing, and like Barabbas we walk away from the
cross, free. Is there enough gratefulness and love in our hearts to return (like the
Samaritan leper) and identify with Jesus in His passion?
In times past, I have had a wrong concept of the cross. I’ve seen Christ’s work
on the cross as being totally substitutionary, as though Christ suffered for us so
that we don’t have to suffer. To be sure, His work of redemption on the cross was
entirely substitutionary--He took our place on the cross so that we never have to
experience the wrath of God against sin. Believing in Christ exempts us from
God’s wrath, and in that sense Christ’s cross is absolutely substitutionary. But
His suffering on the cross did not exempt us from suffering. Rather, He invites
us to participate in the suffering of His cross. He invites us to be so drawn by the
love displayed on His cross that we respond in love by desiring to take up our
cross.
Love wants to share the cross. Love doesn’t look at the cross and say, “Thank
you, Jesus, for suffering so that I never have to suffer.” Love looks at the cross
and says, “Oh, how can I share this moment with You, Lord? How can I identify
with You in Your pain? Is there a way that You and I can do this together? Can
we be partners in life, and partners in death? You are my Betrothed, and I want
to be with You in everything to which Your Father calls You.”
We avoid the cross because we’re stupid. We try to avert the pain, little
realizing exactly what we’re running from. We don’t understand the love that the
cross opens before us. The cross becomes the most generous offer God could
make--an opportunity for us to love Jesus with the same fiery intensity with
which He loves us. You thought you knew love--until you took up the cross. To
the one who takes up his cross, there comes a flood of unparalleled affection
from the Lamb who was slain. “You would do this for Me?” the Lord asks. “You
would suffer in this way because you love Me so much?” Nothing touches the
Lamb’s heart like this kind of love.
Why do we have such an aversion to persecution when Jesus said the reward
in heaven for the persecuted is great? (See Matthew 5:12.) Why do we seek out
the path of least resistance rather than the way of the cross? It is because we
have convoluted values. We don’t want to witness to our neighbors because of
the reproach and rejection we might experience, even though Jesus promised a
great reward to those who are thus rejected. Why do we avoid the promise of
great reward?
Learning Obedience Through Suffering
The Book of Hebrews says this about Jesus:
Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He
suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation
to all who obey Him (Hebrews 5:89).
The way of obedience is painful. One reason many don’t walk in obedience is
because they evade the suffering that obedience often necessitates. They don’t
understand that on the other side of the suffering is the greatest fulfillment man
can realize.
Jesus was perfect, yet He learned obedience. He learned obedience as the Son
of Man. Never before had He lived as a Man, and so He was learning what it
meant to walk in obedience as a Man. Jesus was always perfect -- He was a
perfect baby, a perfect teen, a perfect adult. But he was not perfected until He
had suffered. Bob Mumford illustrates it this way: an acorn is perfect; an oak
tree is perfected.
The New Testament word for “obedience” is very intriguing. A compound
word in the Greek language, it means literally, “to hear under.”
Thus, to be obedient is not simply to hear. I can hear and then choose to
disobey. To obey -- “to hear under” -- is to hear with an attitude of submission.
Obedience is a positional thing. I bring my life under God’s rule and submit
myself to everything I hear. So obedience involves coming under God’s
authority.
Jesus learned obedience perfectly. That means He heard from His Father with
an attitude of full submission. He complied with everything He heard because
His life was totally surrendered to His Father’s will.
Jesus’ life illustrates this important kingdom principle: You don’t have to fail
in order to learn. Jesus never failed once as He learned obedience. When I saw
this, I became so excited. I realized I had believed a lie. I thought I couldn’t learn
without first blowing it. But now I see that if I’m living in a place of submission
to the Father, I can learn to hear Him and obey Him without ever having to fail.
The key is in hearing from a heart of submission. That’s why the Holy Spirit is
saying so forcefully to us in this hour: “Listen!”
Obedience Produces Suffering
The place of obedience is the safest place in the universe to be, and it’s also
the most dangerous place to be. The closer we follow Christ, the safer we are,
but the more abuse we experience. We’re safe because we’re in His will, but
we’re hurting because we’re encountering so many obstacles and challenges.
One of the passions of the holy life is to find the place of safety “under the
shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). This is the painful dilemma of Psalm 91.
As we press into the shelter of the shadow of the Almighty, we find some of the
most painful things coming into our lives. We cry for protection, but it seems
that the more passionately we pursue Him, the more flak we face. Jesus warned
us of this, of course, when He said they would hate us because they hated Him.
The closer we draw to Christ, the more hate we encounter.
By appearances, the one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
encounters more hassles than ever. According to externals, that’s true. But the
one who dwells in the secret place of the Most High doesn’t live by externals --
he lives by the inward life of the Spirit. Therefore, while his body and soul may
be afflicted with harassment and abuse, the spirit of the saint has found a place
of protection under the shadow of the Almighty where he is beyond all injury --
it is the place of immunity.
This truth is seen in the lives of many saints. Take Moses. The closer he drew
in to the will of God in leading the nation of Israel, the more flak he faced, both
from Pharaoh and also from his fellow Israelites.
Take David. The closer he came to entering into his calling as king of Israel,
the hotter the attacks on him grew, both from Saul and his own ranks.
Take Jesus. As He walked faithfully toward the cross, the opposition
continuously escalated, to the point of death.
The place of obedience is simultaneously the place of greatest protection and
greatest abuse. Some saints, in an effort to save their life, have shied away from
the opposition and hate they’ve had to face. What they did not realize is that by
averting the pain, they left their first love -- the shadow of the Almighty. The
external opposition became more liveable, but they lost the secret place of inner
protection.
Read Psalm 91 again, and see if the secret place of internal refuge is not in
fact the place of escalating external attack. As the attacks increase, the saint
cries, “Hide me!” The Spirit thus draws him into a place of greater spiritual
peace and comfort, which only inflames his soul with a greater passion for Jesus,
which in turn only feeds the ire of his tormentors. Make the decision now: Lose
your life, and pursue the secret place of the Most High. It is the way of the cross.
The Cross: Gateway To Glory
The Father and the Spirit have this certain fixation, this preoccupation, to
establish the Son -- the Lamb who was obedient to death -- as the focal point of
the universe. He is center stage. The only way to honor the Father is to honor the
Son He sent.
In discussing the plan of redemption, I can suppose at some point in eternity
past the Father saying, “Son, if you will become the Lamb, there will be
incredible pain and humiliation for you; but there will also be, subsequent to that
suffering, greater glory than this universe has ever seen. You will be the recipient
of untold glory.” How could the Father bestow even greater glory on the Son
than He already had, since He already shared equality with God? This greater
glory will come from the saints -- the Bride. “Give Him glory, all you people.”
Christ’s obedience to the cross is bringing to Him incredible glory from the
Bride, from the Lamb’s wife, a people who were created for His glory.
What is true for Jesus is also true for us: the greatest glory is opened up only
to those who embrace the cross.
Jesus understood His Father’s love and knew that the Father inflicted pain in
order to produce a greater glory. What glory is now ascribed to Him who was
willing to embrace the suffering of death! No one has known pain like Christ.
He’s looking for a Bride with whom He can relate, who can identify with His
joys and who has also experienced His pains. Do you really want to be like
Christ? You must embrace the hand of the Father; you must embrace the cross.
To do so is to abandon yourself with open arms to your heavenly Father,
receiving the cup He gives you, and losing your will in His. From this
abandonment will rise a Bride worthy of the name of Jesus Christ.
You’ll never get to know the cross academically. If you pray, “Lord, show me
Your cross,” you’re probably praying more than you realize. He doesn’t just
reveal His cross, He works it in you. The cross is learned experientially.
When Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to
finish His work” (John 4:34), He was making an overt reference to His cross.
This was the work He was to finish. Even though He hungered and thirsted on
the cross, He nevertheless said, “This is my food; my sustenance is here, in
laying my life down, because it is My Father’s will.” O glorious attainment,
when the suffering we endure becomes our food, for we know it is the will of
God. “Father, I am willing to walk out my present pathway through the most
torturous, difficult route, if You so will -- because Your will is my life, my
sustenance, my survival.”
The Crucified Lover
When Jesus was on the cross, He gave Himself to one thing. There He hung.
The awareness of His Father’s presence that He had always enjoyed had
suddenly disappeared. The very people He had come to serve were maliciously
and vindictively torturing Him to death. And besides all that, He sustained the
wrath of God as He took the punishment for our sins. But He just hung there --
and loved God!
All Jesus did on the cross, in spite of the total injustice of His suffering, was
to love His Father.
And now here comes a Bride. She is longing to share this moment of
suffering with her Beloved. And as she takes up her cross and suffers unjustly
before God and man, all she is doing is loving her Lord. God looks at this Bride
and says, “Son, she reminds me of You. That’s exactly what You did. She’s just
loving Me in the midst of her pain.”
And the Son says, ““Father, now I see it--this is the Bride You promised Me.
You said she’d be like Me. You told Me I would be able to relate to her. You said
we’d have things in common that we would be able to share for all eternity. You
said she would be My co-equal partner. And oh, My Father, she is...why,
she’s...beautiful!”
“Yes, she certainly is beautiful,” replies the Father. “When You went to the
cross, You moved My heart so, My Son. I never thought anything could ever
again move My heart like that. But now as I behold her, sharing in Your
sufferings, I must say that My heart is moved all over again. She is absolutely
amazing to Me. For as much as I love You, My Son, I love her too!”
 Chapter Six
Purifed Heart Motivations
One reason so many believers are “going through the fire” right now is
because God is in the business of purifying the most inner motivations of our
hearts. He wants us to serve Him because we love Him, not because we love
accomplishments or love to see the fruit of our labors.
To change the motivations of the human heart is no small thing, and only God
can do it. No matter how hard we might try, we can never change the
fundamental motives that drive our actions. We are able with our willpower to
adapt our behavior to a limited degree, but we are powerless to change our
motivations.
Our motivations are shaped by a variety of factors from the moment of
conception, and to change something that is so deeply rooted in the very essence
of who we’ve come to be is impossible--except for God.
God is not interested simply in what we do, or how we serve Him; He is
deeply interested in why we do what we do. He’s not only looking for pure
actions but pure motives. Therefore, He applies the fire of His love to our life--
and it comes in the form of crisis, pain, distress, or calamity. The calamity is
actually an instrument of His love, designed to purify and change us to become
more like Jesus.
The purifying of our motives is essential because our eternal reward will be
directly related to the motives in which we served.
We can do great exploits for God, but if our motive is not love, it profits us
nothing (see Matthew 7:22-23).
Jeremiah 17:9-10 says that the motives of men’s hearts are extremely
deceitful, and we don’t know our own hearts. But the Lord searches men’s hearts
and will “give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his
doings.”
There are times when we actually start to feel fairly spiritual and feel like
we’re really starting to get a handle on this thing called Christianity. Then, God
just pulls back a little corner of our hearts, and reveals to us our true motivations.
“Ugh!” we say. “Where did that ugly thing come from, Lord?” We discover there
is iniquity in our hearts regarding which we are completely oblivious, so the
Lord calls us to a commitment of increasingly purifying the motives of our
hearts.
As God has turned up the fire in my life, I have come to recognize four heart
motivations that He is seeking to cultivate in my life. As you review these four
motivations of the heart, I trust you will receive confirmation and clarity
regarding what God is doing in your life at this time. He is looking for
everything we do to spring from these four great heart desires:
“I want to be with Him.”
“I want to know Him.”
“I want to please Him.”
“I want His honor.”
 Chapter Seven
I Want To Be With Him
The first passion that moves everything we do is right here: “Lord, I’ve just
got to be with You, wherever You are!” Christians are known by one common
denominator: They have this passion to hang out with Jesus. They just want to
follow the Lamb around wherever He goes.
Even as this cry erupts from our soul, “O Lord, I want to be with You!” we
discover something: He’s always on the move!
The Scriptures are consistent in portraying this quality of our Lord Jesus. In
the Song of Solomon He is described as “leaping upon the mountains, skipping
upon the hills” (Song of Solomon 2:8). In the Bible, “mountains” primarily
represent two things: great obstacles (e.g., Mark 11:23), and nations or spheres
of human authority (e.g., Isaiah 2:2). In a figurative sense, then, this verse
describes Jesus as bounding effortlessly over every challenge and problem that
this fallen world might present, and it also portrays Him as moving victoriously
through the nations. He is the reigning King of the nations!
This image is reinforced in the Book of Revelation where Jesus is seen as a
rider on a white horse who goes forth through the nations, victoriously
conquering His foes (see Revelation 6:2; 19:11). Jesus has an agenda for the
entire world, and so He rides through the nations to conquer the hearts of men
and women with His love.
When we look at Jesus in the gospel stories, this quality of Jesus is vividly
clear. He is constantly on the move. Actually, to be one of Jesus’ followers and
to keep up with Him, you had to be fairly fit. He was constantly walking from
village to village, spending many hours on the road, taking the gospel to people
who had not heard.
So when we pray, “Lord, I want to follow You. I just want to be where You
are,” we quickly realize that in order to stay in Christ’s shadow we’ve got to
keep pace with Him. His heart is for the needy masses of the world, and we will
not be able to stay in His company if we isolate ourselves and take up permanent
residence in our prayer closet. If we want to be with Him, we’re going to have to
go with Him to touch the needs of the people of the world.
Paul’s Motivations
Paul talks about his heart motivations in the third chapter of Philippians. Look
at these two verses:
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things
which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God
in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).
In these verses, I believe Paul is telling us what moves him to travel from
nation to nation.
When I’ve looked at Paul’s life, sometimes I’ve been tempted to think that he
may have been almost hyper. He strikes me like one of those guys who is wired
to 220 volts. You know the type--they don’t need much sleep, they’re constantly
on the go, and they can never just slow down and relax a little. Some people are
high-energy types, and they attack life with gusto. I thought maybe Paul was just
one of those kinds of people. Maybe that’s what motivated Paul to travel
constantly from nation to nation, I conjectured.
Maybe it was just because he couldn’t sit still.
But Paul helps us to understand what drove Him. He says that it’s “the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” When I look at how Paul travelled
internationally, I would have expected him to say “the outward call of God in
Christ Jesus.” I was ready for him to say, “God has called me to go out to the
nations, so I must obey that outward call.” But instead, Paul talks about an
“upward call.”
Paul is saying, “I’ve been called of God to come up. Christ is bidding me to
come higher, to ascend to a higher level of relationship with Himself. He is
calling me to get to know Him better.”
“But,” Paul would add, “I’ve discovered something. If I want to gain Christ, if
I want to know Him better, if I want to be with Him--it doesn’t happen in a
corner. I’ve come to realize that Jesus is constantly on the move, running in the
nations. And if I’m going to stay with Him, I’ve got to be on the move as well.”
The thing that motivated Paul was not an enjoyment of international travel,
but it was an overwhelming urgency to stay in pace with His beloved Lord. He
just wanted to be with Jesus, and if that meant getting on a boat, or travelling by
road, he was willing to do it.
Intimacy Versus Ministry Accomplishments
The Lord is completely transforming our motivations. He is searching our
hearts and revealing what it is that motivates us to “leap upon mountains” with
Jesus in servant ministry.
He is asking us, “Are you motivated by the ‘rush’ of accomplishing exploits
in My name?” It is the natural tendency of our flesh to be energized when we see
our efforts accomplishing tangible results for the kingdom of God. How we exult
when someone gets saved or healed or delivered through our ministry! How we
are warmed when someone expresses appreciation for our labors. But it is a
carnal and impure motivation.
Jesus is saying, “How I desire that you be motivated by the sheer delight of
being with Me!”
When we serve Jesus simply because we long to be with Him and to be doing
what He’s doing, then the question for us becomes, “Where are You today for
me. Lord Jesus?” If for me Jesus is at work, I want to be at work; if for me He is
at home, I want to be home; if for me He is reaching out to the people of my
community, then I want to be on the streets with Him. I just want to be where He
is--because I love Him so much.
Listen, dear reader: if Jesus is sprawled on your couch watching TV, by all
means join Him! (Get it?)
Our responsibility is simply to be where He is and to do what He’s doing.
Sometimes we plan our ministry activities, and then we hope and pray for
God’s blessing. Instead of planning first and praying second, I’m wondering
what would happen if we inverted the order. What would happen if we first of all
sought Him and found out where He was and what He was doing? If we gave
ourselves to doing what He is doing, then we wouldn’t have to plead with Him
to bless our efforts. Our labors would be automatically blessed because we
would be working with Him. If we did our praying up front, I believe we’d enter
a greater dimension of kingdom fruitfulness. Instead of begging God to bless our
ideas, we would be giving ourselves to those things that are prompted by the
heart of God.
If you’re serving because you want to see souls saved, you’ll probably get
discouraged and quit. If, however, your motivation is to be with Jesus, then
you’ll never weary of reaching out to human needs. You’ll be energized by the
joy of fellowship with the Lord Jesus in the midst of the harvest field.
Let this cry fill your heart just now: “Lord, I just want to be with You!”
 Chapter Eight
I Want To Know Him
The first motivation of my heart is that I want to be with Him. And the reason
I want to be with Him is this: I want to know Him! This is the second great
motivation that I want to energize all that I do. I want to know Him “in whom
are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).
This is the passion that fills the breast of the saint who has been quickened to
the beauty of Christ’s face. Above all else, he longs desperately to know more of
Christ.
Hebrews 3:3 says the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.
Speaking of Christ, the writer is saying that the Creator of the universe has more
honor than the universe itself. Jesus is more honorable, more glorious, more
incredible than the universe He created! So take your pick of the created order--
want to tour a far-off galaxy? Interested in exploring a supernova? As
splendiferous as that may be, exploring the face of Jesus is even more exciting!
Moses Wanted To Know Him
On one occasion Moses prayed, “Please, show me your glory” (Exodus
33:18). To understand this request, let me give you some background.
I don’t know anyone, apart from Jesus Himself, who had so many encounters
with the glory of God. Look at the list:
1. He sees a burning bush.
2. His rod turns to a serpent, and his hand becomes leprous then whole.
3. He sees the ten plagues on Egypt.
4. He watches the Red Sea part, the people cross over on dry ground, and
then he sees Pharaoh’s army drown in the sea.
5. He sees the glory of God come upon Mt. Sinai. There’s lightning,
thunder, a thick cloud, a piercing trumpet blast, the whole mountain is shaking
and burning with smoke billowing from it like a furnace. Then at God’s
command he ascends the mountain into the billowing inferno.
6. After being in that glory with God on the mountain for 40 days, he comes
down, takes care of business, and then ascends for a second set of 40 days. It is
during this time that the glory of God is so completely upon him that he doesn’t
realize it, but his face is glistening with the radiance of God’s glory. And it’s at
this point that Moses prays, “Please, show me your glory.”
 I’m sort of surprised that God wasn’t disgusted with this request. “You
ingrate!” I would have imagined God to retort, “After all the glory I’ve shown
you, you want more?” But God didn’t respond like that. Instead, it’s obvious that
God was delighted by this request. Even though Moses had already known more
glory in his life than any other human, God was pleased that he would want to
see even more of His glory.
Moses had his priorities in good order. Above all, he wanted to know God.
This desire to know Him was rewarded by God, and it’s a desire that God is still
rewarding today.
O To Know Him!
The Lord said through the prophet Hosea, “My people are destroyed for lack
of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Great poverty and destruction has come to the
church because of a lack of knowledge. But it’s not simply a lack of Bible
knowledge. It’s not saying, “Because you don’t know the Scriptures.” If you
look at the context (specifically verse 1), Hosea is talking about the “knowledge
of God.” God is saying, “You are impoverished because you don’t know Me.” O
the riches and blessing of coming to know God!
To know God was the great passion that captivated the heart of Paul. He
wrote, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8).
Paul had been granted a revelation of Jesus Christ, and he knew there was
infinitely more to attain. He had experienced the sheer delight of having the
Holy Spirit reveal the glory of God that’s in the face of Christ.
In the previous verses, Paul has just listed his earthly attainments--a Hebrew
of the Hebrews, a Pharisee, concerning the Law blameless, etc. But he says he
willfully lost all that in exchange for the glory of getting to know Christ. In fact,
when he compares his past attainments to the glory of gaining Christ, he calls his
previous attainments “rubbish.” Paul is saying, “Don’t even talk to me about
what I had to give up to become a Christian. It’s nothing; it’s garbage; it’s
rubbish. What I have given up is totally nonsignificant in the light of the glory
that I have gained in getting to know Jesus Christ.”
Unparalleled Pleasure
There is nothing as glorious to the human heart as the revelation of Jesus
Christ to one’s understanding. When the glory of God comes upon you, and the
Holy Spirit fills you, expanding your heart with fresh revelation of the incredible
love of Christ--that is an unequalled pleasure. Every other pursuit becomes a
paltry and cheap substitute. We were created to know Christ.
People pursue pleasure in other places, never realizing that they are rejecting
the fountain of all joy and delight. We have been invited to drink from the
eternal fountain of God’s love. For the saint, the thrill of eternity will be the
never-ending unfolding of the beauty and glory of Christ Jesus.
I want to know Him--because there is no one like Him! He is absolutely
unparalleled in wonder and excellence. Even God said, “I know of no other
besides Me” (see Isaiah 44:8). There isn’t even a close second. And He has
invited us to behold Him who is altogether lovely.
He is so wonderful and magnificent that the sheer beauty of His person casts
off an aura which we call “the glory of God.” The glory of God is the radiation
that emanates from His presence. It is an energy field that derives its life from
the sheer splendor of Him who is seated on the Throne. And yet the glory of God
is but a manifestation and a reflection of something that far exceeds this glory--
His person.
The Essence Of God
I have wondered, “What is the most fundamental attribute of God’s nature?”
Someone might suggest, “In the very essence of His being, God is love.” When
we say that God’s foremost quality is love, however, we get into a lot of trouble.
There are many people who misunderstand the judgments of God because they
believe that God’s over-arching quality is that of love. “How could a God of love
send people to hell?” they ask. They don’t understand that God is not only love,
God is holy.
“That’s it,” someone else might suggest. “God’s most fundamental quality is
that He is holy.” I used to believe that myself, until I began to entertain another
thought. Let me suggest, for your meditation, that God’s most intrinsic quality is
that He is beautiful. Every other quality emanates from His beauty, which means
that every other quality of His nature is also beautiful.
Psalm 96:9 says, “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,” which
suggests to me that His beauty is fundamental to holiness.
When David says He longs to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (Psalm 27:4),
He is saying that He delights to behold the very essence of God.
The Altogether Beautiful One
God the Father esteems the Son and considers all beauty to reside in Him. A
thing is beautiful only if God says so. If it’s beautiful to God, it’s beautiful. Sin
has distorted our ability to perceive beauty. The regenerate man is awakened to
appreciate the beauty of God.
 There is not a moment in Jesus’ history when He was not altogether beautiful.
Even on the cross--and especially on the cross--He was an altogether beautiful
sacrifice to God.
When you clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus (see Colossians
3), you take on the beauty of God Himself. This is the ultimate incentive to
holiness. The saint who is clothed with holiness turns the head of Jesus. We want
to grow in holiness because we want to become increasingly attractive to Jesus.
As Moses cried, “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us!” (Psalm
90:17).
Again, the wonder and glory of all this is simply this: I have been invited into
a relationship in which I will forever be giving myself to knowing more and
more about the beauty and splendor of my Beloved, the altogether Lovely One,
the one who contains the fullness of the beauty of God.
Let my every endeavor spring from this motivation: “Lord, I want to know
You!”
Intimacy In Service
When you’re running with Jesus in active service, He reveals Himself to you.
This becomes the reward of serving at the side of Christ. The reward is not
seeing ministry results, but in getting to know Him more fully.
There is a dimension of Jesus you’ll never know until you accompany Him
into the harvest. If you really want to know Him, you’re going to have to work
with Him in the fields which are ripe for harvesting.
When you’re working with Jesus in the harvest, you see His love for
mankind. You see the glint in His eye as He brings His own unto Himself. And
you receive the love that He reserves for those who have made His interests their
interests. Jesus withholds certain aspects of His beauty from common view, but
He discloses Himself to the one who will go with Him to the harvest.
Our reaching out to the world will never be pure until we move past a love for
people and touch them because of a consuming passion to know Jesus. The
reason we don’t shine for Jesus as we should is because we don’t love Him as
we should. The intensity of our witness is directly proportional to the intensity of
our love. Our problem is not fear of rejection (from people); our problem is
apathy (toward Jesus). When we fervently long to know Christ, we will obey His
command to “go into all the world” because we’ll understand that the place of
active service is the place where we’re going to get to know Him better.
We are to love the sinners whom God is calling to Himself just as much as we
love those who have already believed. God is reserving a baptism of love for His
last-days Church that will transform her into a fiery blaze of passionate concern
for the lost.
No amount of rejection will be able to extinguish this fire for the lost because
the intensity of the fire is in no way regulated by people’s responses, but by the
love of God being shed abroad in the heart. You can pour as much water on a
burning oil well as you might want; you’re not going to extinguish the flame
because it’s being fed by an underground supply. The only way to stop the flame
is to cut off the inner supply. Evangelistic efforts fueled by people’s responses
are sure to fizzle out; evangelistic fervor that is fueled by God’s love from within
can face any human or demonic obstacle without diminishment.
The Desires Of Christ
Just before His death, Jesus opened up His heart in the presence of His
disciples and expressed the deepest prayers of His soul to God. He cried,
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am,
that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me
before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24).
Jesus wanted His disciples to overhear this prayer. There are times, especially
in the presence of our family members, when it is very appropriate to let others
overhear the deepest prayers of our heart. Your kids need to hear your heart
passion before God!
In their presence Jesus prayed, “I desire.” Such a statement must arrest our
attention. Here is God, the Second Person of the Trinity, about to express His
great desire. What will it be? What desires motive the heart of God?
The Greek word for “desire” is “thelo,” and it means: to determine, make a
positive choice; by implication, to will, wish, or desire. The word is usually
translated “will” in the King James Version, as it expresses desire and purpose.
In just an hour or so Jesus is going to the garden of Gethsemane, and He is
going to defer to His Father’s will. He is going to say, “Not what I thelo [will,
desire, purpose], but what You thelo, Father.” This was an expression of absolute
surrender to His Father’s will.
The Father’s thelo was that Jesus be crucified, and Jesus was willing to
submit to that. But here Jesus expresses His thelo. In John 17:24 Jesus is saying,
“Father, here’s My passion, My thelo. First of all, I thelo (desire) that they may
be with Me where I am. And secondly, I thelo (desire) that they may behold My
glory.”
The two primary motivations of Jesus’ heart are the two heart motivations that
we’ve discussed so far. Here’s what drives Jesus’ heart: He just wants us to be
with Him, and He just wants us to know Him--to behold His glory.
The Bride is on earth, crying, “Lord, I just want to be with You,” and the
Bridegroom is in heaven, saying, “And I just want you to be with Me.” The
Bride is on earth, panting, “Oh, I just want to know You, Lord, to see you in
Your glory,” and the Bridegroom is in heaven, declaring, “That’s all I want, too.
I just want you to see My glory, and to know who I really am.” The same bridal
cry erupts from both parties as they look ahead with great anticipation to that day
when they will be together, forever.
May the desires that fill the heart of our beloved Bridegroom also be the
desires that motivate our hearts!
 Chapter Nine
I Want To Please Him
This is the third great motivation that fills the heart of the one who is
abandoned to God’s purposes. Above all else he wants to please the Lord Jesus.
David wrote, “I delight to do Your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8). O the
delight of doing God’s will and God’s will alone! It is called “abandoned
obedience.”
How sweet it is, when you know that you’re doing God’s will.
It is so precious when the Father gently whispers to your heart, “You are My
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Well Pleasing To God
The Father spoke those words over His Son when Jesus was baptized by John
at the Jordan River (Matthew 3:17). It’s interesting to note that as yet Jesus had
not healed anyone, cast out any demons, or preached the gospel to anyone. All
He had done to that point in His earthly walk was stay at home, take care of His
mother, and love His Father. And yet the Father says, “You are My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.” In terms of kingdom business Jesus had to that
point done absolutely nothing, and yet the Father was “well pleased” with Him. s
Applied to our lives, this truth reveals that God’s pleasure over our lives has
very little to do with the kinds of exploits we’re doing for Him. If you’re seeking
to please Him by working real hard for Him, you’re missing it big time. The
thing that pleases God is a heart that loves Him extravagantly, even if you’re in a
season of stillness.
In fact, sometimes the Lord will test our hearts by forcing us to quit an area of
fruitful ministry. Here we are, serving God and loving it; and many people’s
lives are being touched and changed through our ministry. Then here comes
God, and He pulls the carpet out from under us and everything stops. The
Christian’s worst nightmare. It’s not until God takes away our ministry that we
usually see the true motives of our hearts. While we’re functional we think our
motives are so pure. But when God removes us from ministry, suddenly we find
things surfacing in our hearts that we never knew were there. We find ourselves
discontented and chafing under the divinely ordained restrictions.
Then the Lord comes to us: “Why are you so upset? You’ve still got Me. Am I
not enough for you? Or do you also need your ministry in order to be fulfilled?”
 The Lord is jealous enough over us to purify our love. He wants us to love
Him with all our hearts, even when we’re on the shelf in terms of ministry
activity. This is the thing that pleases His heart--an affectionate devotion that is
expressed totally independently of all external circumstances.
Longing To Please Him
To please God was the great cry of Paul: “Therefore we make it our aim,
whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). Paul
also wrote, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men?
For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ” (Galatians
1:10). In this verse Paul establishes this principle: We are to please God and
persuade men--not (as we’re often inclined) to persuade God and please men.
The Rewards Of Pleasing God
The Scriptures give us several incentives to please God. I would like to point
to four verses.
1. By this I know that You are well pleased with me, because my enemy
does not triumph over me (Psalm 41:11).
This verse tells us that God will not allow those who please Him to be
overcome by their enemies. He will fight for them and deliver them. Now, that’s
a great promise! But there’s more.
2. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His
commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight (1 John 3:22).
This verse says that when we please Him we will receive the answers to our
prayers. Now, that ain’t bad! There are some prayers that I’d like to have
answered, so I think I’ll pursue this thing of pleasing God. But there’s more.
3. "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I
always do those things that please Him” (John 8:29).
Jesus said He enjoyed uninterrupted fellowship with the Father because He
always pleased His Father. This is the delightful norm of everyday living for the
one who pleases God--he enjoys continual companionship with God. But there’s
even more.
4. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.
And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and
manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21).
Above all, I want to please Him because I want to inherit the promise of John
14:21. These words are filled with meaning.
• “He who has My commandments”--Jesus isn’t simply saying, “He who
owns a Bible.” It’s not enough to have a written copy of His commandments on
your person. Jesus is describing the person who studies and pursues His
commandments and is not satisfied until they are such an absorbed part of his
heart that he owns the words of Jesus. We ought to absorb every portion of
Scripture in that way, but I have chosen to take this statement very literally and
to give myself specifically to taking in the words of Jesus Himself. I want to give
the best of my time and energies to ingesting and living the words that Jesus
spoke when He was on the earth.
• “and keeps them”--It’s not enough to have His commandments, to know
them, or to even be able to teach about them. Above all, we must obey His
words.
• “it is he who loves Me”--This is the litmus test for loving God. The one
who chases down Jesus’ words, takes them fervently into his heart, and then
diligently adapts his lifestyle in order to adhere to Christ’s words--Jesus said this
is the one who loves Him. When we sing our love songs to Jesus, but know we
are living in disobedience to His will, we are deceiving ourselves. If I really love
Him, I will devote myself to doing His commandments.
• “And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father”--This is the reward of
pleasing God: the Father will lavish His love upon you. What greater reward
could there possibly be? God the Father will surround you with His affections,
and He will whisper to your heart just how much He loves you. This is worth
sacrificing all else for. This is worth being obedient even unto death. It can’t get
any bet t er than t his-- t o be the recipient of the pas sionate, boundless, fiery
love of the Father.
• “and I will love him”--Wait a moment, it just got better! If I walk in
abandoned obedience, not only will the Father pour His limitless love upon me,
but the Lord Jesus will also shower His love upon me! He is the one who has
won my heart; He is my betrothed; He is the only one I want to behold; I only
have eyes for Him; I would do anything for His love. And here He tells me that
He will love me. For this I have forsaken all; for this I have embraced self-
denial; for this I have taken up my cross. And now that which I have panted after
is actually being extended to me. To be the object of His ineffable love--it
doesn’t get any better than this!
• “and manifest Myself to him”--Hold on, I can’t believe it—it just got even
better! If I walk in abandoned obedience, not only will the Father pour His
limitless love upon me, and not only will Jesus lavish His affection upon me, but
He will reveal Himself to me in a most singular and vivid way. That settles it,
folks. My heart is a goner. I’m won. I am owned, I’m a bondslave to this love.
To have Jesus manifest Himself to me? I’d do anything for that! Just to behold
Him! He is the altogether lovely one; He is the fairest of ten thousand; He is the
subject of angel’s songs; He transfigures the universe with the brightness of His
glory; He is the fullness of the Godhead bodily; He is the perfection of beauty.
And here He promises to manifest Himself to me, in the fullness of His glory
and majesty. There’s no contest--nothing else comes remotely close. What can
compare to seeing His face? To gazing into His fiery eyes? To hearing His
majestic voice? To receiving the kisses of His mouth? To beholding the shining
glory of His countenance? The pursuit of this glory has become the consuming
passion of my very existence.
So now my heart cries, “Lord, the only thing I want to do is please You! Help
me, Lord, to know the things that touch Your heart. Help me to know how to
please You, even as You pleased Your Father.”
 Chapter Ten
I Want His Honor
This is the fourth motivation that is the driving force behind all that I do. I do
what I do because I want to receive the honor that God will bestow in the last
day upon those who do His will.
God wants us to be motivated by a passionate desire to receive His honor,
rather than being motivated to receive the honor of man. The honor of God is
“the prize” toward which we strain. More than anything else, I press toward the
goal of hearing the Lord Jesus say to me on that final day, “Well done, good and
faithful servant.” That one word of honor from His lips will have made every
hassle and difficulty here on earth worth it.
Greatly Beloved
I find Daniel’s life story most gripping. He models for us what it means to
seek God’s honor, even when men would lavish their honor upon us.
I want to highlight one specific story in Daniel’s history, but to do so I need to
lay down a backdrop. Twice Daniel is told by a heavenly messenger that he is
“greatly beloved” by God (Daniel 10:11,19). This is said to Daniel with great
emphasis. In essence he is told, “Daniel, God really has a thing for you. Of all
the men on earth, you are the recipient of an unusual and most profound
affection. God has such a special love for you that He has sent me to give you a
singularly outstanding vision and revelation.” And sure enough, Daniel was
given such awesome heavenly visions that he couldn’t even stand up. The
wonder of what he saw is exceeded in Scripture only by the Revelation of Jesus
Christ that was given to the apostle John (the Book of Revelation).
So I find myself asking, “What did Daniel do to incur this kind of affection
from God? There’s got to be a reason why God loved him so much!” I figure if I
could uncover why God loved Daniel so much, then maybe I could give myself
to that same kind of devotion.
I don’t claim to understand the full reason why Daniel was “greatly beloved”
of God, but I do see one reason. To lay out that one reason, I need to reproduce a
passage from the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel.
Daniel 5
Daniel 5:1 Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords,
and drank wine in the presence of the thousand. 2 While he tasted the wine,
Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his
father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem,
that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.
3 Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the
house of God which had been in Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his
wives, and his concubines drank from them. 4 They drank wine, and praised the
gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. 5 In the same hour the
fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster
of the wall of the king’s palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
6 Then the king’s countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that
the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other. 7
The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the
soothsayers. The king spoke, saying to the wise men of Babylon, "Whoever
reads this writing, and tells me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple and
have a chain of gold around his neck; and he shall be the third ruler in the
kingdom." 8 Now all the king’s wise men came, but they could not read the
writing, or make known to the king its interpretation. 9 Then King Belshazzar
was greatly troubled, his countenance was changed, and his lords were
astonished. 10 The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came
to the banquet hall. The queen spoke, saying, "O king, live forever! Do not let
your thoughts trouble you, nor let your countenance change. 11 There is a man
in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. And in the days of your
father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were
found in him; and King Nebuchadnezzar your father--your father the king--made
him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. 12
Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams,
solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the
king named Belteshazzar, now let Daniel be called, and he will give the
interpretation." 13 Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke,
and said to Daniel, "Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah,
whom my father the king brought from Judah? 14 I have heard of you, that the
Spirit of God is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom
are found in you. 15 Now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in
before me, that they should read this writing and make known to me its
interpretation, but they could not give the interpretation of the thing. 16 And I
have heard of you, that you can give interpretations and explain enigmas. Now if
you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be
clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck, and shall be the
third ruler in the kingdom." 17 Then Daniel answered, and said before the king,
"Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another; yet I will read
the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation. 18 O king, the
Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, glory
and honor. 19 And because of the majesty that He gave him, all peoples, nations,
and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he
executed; whomever he wished, he kept alive; whomever he wished, he set up;
and whomever he wished, he put down. 20 But when his heart was lifted up, and
his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they
took his glory from him. 21 Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart
was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed
him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till he
knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it
whomever He chooses. 22 But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your
heart, although you knew all this. 23 And you have lifted yourself up against the
Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you
and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drunk wine from them.
And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and
stone, which do not see or hear or know; and the God who holds your breath in
His hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified. 24 Then the fingers of
the hand were sent from Him, and this writing was written. 25 And this is the
inscription that was written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. 26 This is
the interpretation of each word. MENE: God has numbered your kingdom, and
finished it; 27 TEKEL: You have been weighed in the balances, and found
wanting; 28 PERES: Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes
and Persians." 29 Then Belshazzar gave the command, and they clothed Daniel
with purple and put a chain of gold around his neck, and made a proclamation
concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.
Writing On The Wall
This passage describes a gala party in Babylon. While the wine is flowing, the
food is bountiful, and the festivities are in full swing, suddenly a hand appears
out of nowhere and writes something cryptic on the wall. Nobody in
Belshazzar’s kingdom is able to read and interpret the handwriting.
Then the Queen Mother enters the ballroom to speak to her son. She
remembers how Daniel had interpreted the dreams of her late husband, king
Nebuchadnezzar. So she says to the king, “You ought to find Daniel. He would
be able to read and interpret the handwriting.”
Belshazzar immediately fetches Daniel. Now, Daniel is not to be found in his
former residence. At one time he had served as Nebuchadnezzar’s right hand
man and so would have lived near the king’s palace. But when Belshazzar
became king, he dismissed the cabinet members that had served his father and
appointed his own cabinet. Daniel was ousted from his prestigious place of
responsibility and influence at the king’s right hand. Daniel 8:27 indicates that
Daniel still worked for King Belshazzar, but it was in a much more menial and
insignificant position. Daniel had been demoted, so they search to see where he
now lives, and they find him.
Flattery And Praise
When they bring Daniel before Belshazzar, the first thing Belshazzar does is
flatter him. Twice he says to Daniel, “I have heard of you” (verses 14 & 16). For
a man who has been demoted to a menial job in some corner somewhere, these
words of praise must have pulled at Daniel’s ego. Imagine the President of the
United States calling you into his Oval Office and saying to you, “I have heard
of you.” Now that would be impressive! Here is Belshazzar, the most powerful
man in the world, acknowledging that Daniel’s reputation has gone before him.
“You’re the talk of the king’s court.” That’s very flattering indeed.
Then Belshazzar offers to reinstate Daniel to his former position, provided
that he is able to read and interpret the handwriting on the wall.
Keep in mind that Daniel has been sent out to pasture. He’s a discarded
nobody. He’s a semi-retired “has been” whom everyone has forgotten. And
suddenly he faces an opportunity to regain honor, prestige, power, position, and
wealth. All the other court members are drooling at the offer that has just been
extended to him. What will Daniel say?
Daniel’s response is most amazing. The flattery doesn’t inflate his ego. The
king’s honor doesn’t seduce him. The possibility of prestigious advancement
doesn’t make his heart race. Instead, he retorts to the king, “Let your gifts be for
yourself, and give your rewards to another; yet I will read the writing to the king,
and make known to him the interpretation” (verse 17). I want you to see that
Daniel was completely unmoved by the king’s compliments and honor. Far from
tantalized, he is completely unimpressed with the honor that this mighty
Monarch could bestow.
Living For God’s Honor
If we could ask Daniel why the king’s honor meant so little to him, I think he
would tell us something like this: “Because there’s only one thing I live for--the
honor that God can bestow.”
Daniel was a man who despised the honor that man could give because he
valued the honor that God could give. And this, I believe, is one reason why God
loved him so much. God is like, “Wow--this is incredible! I’ve got a man who
values My honor so much that he repudiates the highest honors of man. I love
this man! Here’s a vessel that I can use.”
I fully believe the reason the hand appeared and wrote on the wall, in the first
place, was because God had a Daniel. If there had been no Daniel, there would
have been no handwriting on the wall. God had a man who esteemed the honor
of God over the honor of man, and so He was able to work in a most intriguing
way to speak to the king of Babylon. Where there’s a Daniel--someone who lives
for the honor of God--God is free to move in awesome ways.
Warm Fuzzies
Has someone ever complimented you, and as a result you felt “warm fuzzies”
on the inside? There is something in our sinfulness that is gratified when we
receive commendation from people. “For men will praise you when you do well
for yourself” (Psalm 49:18).
So many people pursue this kind of praise--to be well esteemed in the sight of
other people. Some are even driven by their need for the recognition of men.
This is an area in which the Spirit of God continues to challenge me most
forcefully. The Spirit helped me to see that when I am nourished by the praises
of man, it is actually idolatry. It’s idolatry because I am finding life and
sustenance in something other than Jesus. To be energized by the honor of man
is to find fulfillment in something which Jesus despised.
Jesus’ Perspective
Jesus expressed that disdain for man’s praise when He said, “I do not receive
honor from men” (John 5:41). He didn’t merely say,
“I don’t go looking for the compliments of men,” but He said, “When the
compliments come, I don’t even take them in to Myself.”
Our Lord went on to say, “How can you believe, who receive honor from one
another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44).
It’s as though Jesus were saying, “I don’t understand you people. Why do you
settle for something so paltry as the honor that man can give, when there is
something so far greater available to you? The honor of man is so insignificant
in contrast to the honor that your Heavenly Father is able to bestow.” Jesus
would testify, “There is no honor like My Father’s honor.”
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that
was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). The
joy that was set before Him was this: the explosive, extravagant honor the Father
would abundantly lavish upon Him in glory.
I can imagine the Father, sometime in the ages past, saying something like
this to the Son: “Son, if You will embrace the suffering and death of the cross, it
will please My heart greatly, and I will honor You.”
And I can imagine the Son replying, “O holy Father, there are only two things
I live for--to please You, and to receive Your honor.
I would do anything for that!”
Jesus understood what it meant to be honored by the Father, and so it was for
this that He lived and died. And did the Father honor Him? Oh my, how He
honored Him! “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the
name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11).
Seeking God’s Glory
Jesus said, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who
seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in
Him” (John 7:18). I have been so convicted by this Scripture because Jesus is
saying that every time I speak something that originates in my heart I am seeking
my own glory. Every time I preach a sermon that has not gotten its impetus from
the heart of the Father, I am speaking out of my own resources, and thus am
seeking to look good before people. This verse has put an ardent desire in my
heart to speak only that which the Spirit of God is giving me.
I am amazed at what Jesus says about the one who seeks the glory of the One
who sent him. He said there is “no unrighteousness is in Him.” In other words, if
I can get to the place where the only motivation that fills my heart is to bring
honor and glory to God, then I will have arrived at a place of sinlessness.
This business of desiring honor for ourselves--this is the final frontier. We
think we’re striving to glorify God until God shows us how much we look for
glory ourselves. If only we could get to the place where there is no desire
whatsoever within us to look good before men, and an exclusive and burning
desire to see God glorified! Once we have perfected that attainment we will truly
have entered into the grace of Christian perfection. For this we strain. Help us,
Lord!
Summary
 There are four great motivations, then, which we are seeking to cultivate and
feed in our heart:
“I want to be with Him.”
“I want to know Him.”
“I want to please Him.”
“I want His honor.”
To be with Him, to know Him, to please Him, to receive His honor--for this I
am desperate. By the grace of God, I will refrain from no measure, I will spare
no expense, I will embrace any discipline, I will travel any distance, I will be
still as long as it takes, I will hazard any hardship, I will chance whatever
reproach, misunderstanding, or rejection it might involve, to pursue these four
things. I must gain Christ!
 Chapter Eleven
Three Stages Of Consecration
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you
servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called
you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to
you” (John 15:13-15).
In this deeply stirring passage, Jesus differentiates between a servant and a
friend. Jesus indicates that at one time His disciples were merely servants, but
through relationship-building time together the disciples had come to be Jesus’
friends.
This places a great goal before us. “Lord, I don’t want to be Your servant
only; I want to progress to the level of friendship.”
There are different levels of relationship with Christ. We grow in our love
relationship with Him, from glory to glory. I want to cite some passages that
point to three general levels of Christian consecration or maturity. Although
using different terminology, these passages point to the same dynamic--how we
grow in grace, ever moving toward the fullness of Christ. The first such passage
is John 15:13-15, which is quoted above.
First Level: Believer
The first level of Christian experience is what I will call “a believer.” We all
start off as believers. When we’re first born into the family of God, we all
believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world. We have
repented, believed, confessed, been baptized in water, and our names are written
in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Many people believe and accept Christ as their Savior, but they hesitate to
make Him the Lord of their life. In many ways they still want to live for
themselves. They have a place in the kingdom of God, but they are very
immature.
It’s one thing to be a believer; it’s another thing to become a servant of Christ.
Second Level: Servant
What does it mean to be a servant of God? A servant is someone who has
completely surrendered himself to obeying Jesus.
He has fully embraced the cross, has knelt at the altar of consecration, and
now is committed to 100% radical obedience.
A servant has given himself entirely to God. His time, his talents, his
treasures--everything is fully submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He can
say along with Paul, “I am a bondslave of Jesus Christ.”
Servanthood is a glorious kingdom attainment! It is a wonderful day when we
finally realize that we’ll never be satisfied with anything less than absolute
surrender. Although we still struggle with the flesh, the heart commitment is
there. We want to be fully available to God.
Third Level: Friendship.
This is the ultimate dimension of Christian living. There is a realm in God
where Jesus is not only my Friend, but I am also His friend. At the servant
dimension I come to enjoy Jesus as my Friend; at the friendship level I become
the kind of friend that He enjoys.
Before we look more closely at the differences between a servant and a friend,
let me point to two other passages that also describe the Christian walk in three
general spheres of experience.
30-, 60-, And 100-Fold
Jesus divided the fruitfulness of the Christian life into three general spheres
when He said, “‘But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a
hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty’” (Matthew 13:8). In context, Jesus is
talking about the comparative yield of different kinds of good soil. Some soil
will produce a 30fold harvest, some will produce 60-fold, and some 100-fold.
Jesus is pointing to the fact that Christians have different levels of fruitfulness
in the kingdom. Some are simply more effective in the Lord’s harvest than
others.
The 30-fold sphere describes those who bear a harvest as much as thirty
percent; the 60-fold sphere describes those who bear a harvest from thirty to
sixty percent; the 100-fold sphere describes those who bear a harvest from sixty
to one hundred percent. In other words, each sphere represents a continuum, and
so a believer may find himself in a constant state of flux as he grows and
matures into ever greater fruitfulness.
These three spheres of fruitfulness coincide with Jesus’ later teaching in John
15 on servants and friends in this way:
30-fold coincides with “believer”
60-fold coincides with “servant” 100-fold coincides with “friend”
At first glance it may appear that I’m trying to force a connection here, but I
believe you’ll find this application to bear up under scrutiny. The most
identifiable quality of a “friend of God” is fruitfulness, which coincides with the
100-fold harvest. The unifying factor in all of this is fruitfulness.
A “believer” operates in the sphere of one to thirty percent fruitfulness. He
has an impact on other people’s lives, but his witness is rendered less than fully
effective because of the immaturity and compromise in his life.
A “servant” moves into greater fruitfulness, as much as 60fold, because he has
embraced the discipline of Romans 12:1, and his life is now “a living sacrifice”
to God. There is so much grace to explore in this dimension, and so Jesus
describes it as a sphere that ranges from thirty to sixty percent fruitfulness.
A “friend” moves into the ultimate dimension of fruitfulness, where he learns
to move ever closer to the ultimate attainment: 100-fold fruitfulness.
Turn to the next chapter and we’ll look at another matching passage.
 Chapter Twelve
Little Children, Young Men, Fathers
I want to cite one final passage which points to three general levels of
Christian living:
I write to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His
name’s sake. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from
the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the
wicked one. I write to you, little children, because you have known the Father. I
have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the
beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the
word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one (1 John
2:12-14).
The apostle John divides the Christian life into three general spheres of
spiritual maturity: little children, young men, and fathers. These three terms are
parallel concepts with the other two passages cited in the previous chapter.
Little Children
The “little children” are young “believers” who, because of their immaturity,
are not really productive in the kingdom. That’s one of the characteristics of
children. Kids are an absolute delight because they fill a home with joy, warmth,
and fun, but they don’t bring much income into the home. In fact, not only are
babies totally non-productive, they are incredibly demanding. They seem to
“take” more than they can “give.”
Young believers are often the same way. Instead of producing a great
kingdom harvest, they often seem to require a lot of time and energy.
But this is normal. It’s normal for everyone to start off as a baby in Christ. It’s
just not normal to stay a baby. God wants us to grow up.
Young Men
The “young men” are “servants” who have come into a greater dimension of
kingdom productivity, as much as 60-fold fruitfulness. These young men are
strong in grace, they’re able to teach the word of God, and they’ve learned how
to resist and overcome the devil in spiritual warfare. Because of these
attainments, they touch other people in a greater way than when they were “little
children.”
Little children will become young men if they are nourished properly and
allowed to grow. But sadly enough, many people seem to remain “spiritual
children” for many years. Some believers have been with Christ for years, but
they still don’t know how to overcome the enemy or how to instruct others in the
truths of the faith.
Little children look at the attainments of young men and think to themselves,
“That must be the ultimate dimension in Christ! To come to a place where every
known sin has been brought into subjection and where Jesus is crowned Lord of
every area--wow! When I get to that place I will have arrived!” But there’s more
to attain than just the place of the “young men,” far more.
Fathers
Spiritual “fathers” are those who have come to know God and as a result are
truly “friends” with Christ. They have entered the greatest dimensions of
fruitfulness in the kingdom, even approaching 100-fold fruitfulness. The
foremost quality of spiritual fathers is that they are reproducers of spiritual
children. Again, the issue of maturity (fatherhood) is fruitfulness. Fathers beget
children.
Paul distinguishes between 60-fold young men and 100-fold fathers in this
way: “For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do
not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the
gospel” (1 Corinthians 4:15). The “instructors” correspond to the “young men”
who are strong in the word and able to teach. There are many young men but not
many fathers. With each level of maturity the numbers decrease.
Following is a simple diagram which shows the parallel nature of the passages
we have just discussed and the three general levels of Christian maturity.
1 John Matthew John
2:12-14 13:8 15:13-15
“little
sonship: 30-fold believer
children”
“young
discipleship: 60-fold “servant”
men”
partnership: “fathers” 100-fold “friend”
The “little children” are paralleled with “sonship” because these have become
sons of God. The “young men” are paralleled with “discipleship” because they
have embraced the cross and become true disciples of Christ. The “fathers” are
paralleled with “partnership” because they have learned the secret of becoming
yoked with Christ and working together with Him.
We’ll discuss this diagram further in the next chapter.
 Chapter Thirteen
Partnership With God
Last chapter we introduced the following diagram:
1 John Matthew John
2:12-14 13:8 15:13-15
“little
sonship: 30-fold believer
children”
“young
discipleship: 60-fold “servant”
men”
partnership: “fathers” 100-fold “friend”
Issues Of Maturity
This diagram helps us to see some interesting dynamics regarding spiritual
maturity.
Perhaps you’ve wondered if there’s any way to determine someone’s spiritual
maturity level. The issue in maturity is fruitfulness. The immature are not so
fruitful; the mature are more fruitful. Maturity in Christ is not necessarily linked
to how long one has known the Lord or how active one has been in ministry.
Maturity has nothing to do with position or title; there are many immature
leaders in the church. Jesus isn’t impressed with human accomplishments or
educational degrees. He’s looking for vines that will bear much fruit.
I used to equate maturity with stability. If someone was real stable in God
then I thought they were very mature. But now I see that maturity has less to do
with status and more to do with function. Sometimes I’ve heard saints say things
like, “I carried that ministry for fifteen years, now it’s somebody else’s turn.” In
this way, some saints actually decrease in fruitfulness as they get older. This is
actually quite sad because God has so much more for them.
God intends for 30-fold Christians to become 60-fold Christians. I did not
always understand this. I used to think that we’re stuck at one of these levels.
“Once a 30-folder, always a 30-folder” is how I used to think. I see now that I
had confused fruitfulness with stewardship of talents. Let me explain the
difference I now see between talents and fruitfulness.
A talent is a God-given gifting over which we have no determination. In other
words, we don’t decide our areas of gifting, God does. He gives us talents in
specific areas and then holds us responsible to cultivate and develop those talents
and abilities. When it comes to talents, you’ve got what you’ve got. For
example, some people are gifted musically and they learn to make music with
comparatively little effort. There are others who are less gifted musically,
however, and can spend years in music lessons with relatively little progress.
Our level of attainment in any area will always be limited by the degree of
giftedness God has given us in that area.
Fruitfulness, on the other hand, has to do with how productive we become in
our areas of talent and gifting. When it comes to fruitfulness, we can always
improve. We can’t change our level of gifting, but we can improve how
effectively we function in that gifting. If I am a 2-talent person I cannot decide to
become a 3-talent person, but I can purpose, in God’s grace, to become the most
fruitful 2-talent person I can possibly be. God designs for all believers to
progress all the way to 100-fold fruitfulness. Not many achieve that place, but
it’s available to all. Regardless of your level of gifting, God wants you to
exercise your giftings at 100-fold fruitfulness.
Each level of maturity has a certain threshold which is difficult to cross. To
cross the threshold from being a child to becoming a young man in God requires
the wholehearted embracing of the cross, dying to self, and living only to God.
To cross the threshold from being a young man to a spiritual father is an even
more painful transition. Young men have learned how to exercise their talents for
God, but to become spiritual fathers they must learn another dimension of
dependence upon the Spirit of God.
Moving Into Fatherhood
Let me talk a little more about this transition. 60-fold “young men” are hard
workers. They have learned to labor in the vineyard, and they are usually easy to
spot because they are very active. They are busy for God. As they take on more
and more areas of ministry responsibility, they become more and more stretched.
Finally, they come to the place where they feel totally maxed out. “If someone
gives me one more ball to juggle,” they think, “I’ll probably drop everything!”
And just about this time, a father in the faith strolls by. This young man
watches him in total amazement. The spiritual father is so much more relaxed,
he’s not even breaking a sweat, but he is so much more fruitful in the kingdom.
(Fathers have learned that fruitfulness is not linked to one’s level of activity.)
The young man is simultaneously amazed and perplexed because he can’t
understand how this father can produce so much kingdom fruit with seemingly
so little effort.
As for himself, this young man is running full tilt. He is serving Jesus with his
entire being, but he cannot possibly add one more thing to his schedule. He
knows there are greater dimensions of fruitfulness in God, but he has no idea
how to access them. He begins to feel dissatified with his place in God because
he has reached 60-fold fruitfulness and cannot seem to get beyond it. A cry for
more of Christ begins to arise from deep within his heart.
The Lord knows that this young man will not be able to enter the highest
dimensions of consecration without help. So God says, “Let me do you a favor.”
And He goes--WHACK! He wounds the young man. This is how God
introduces the 60-fold Christian to the dimension of 100-fold fruitfulness. It’s
summarized in one word: pruning. God takes the 60-fold young man who is full
of energy and vision and cuts him back to nothing. Through the trauma of the
pruning process, the 60-fold servant begins to learn to tap into a lifesource that is
greater than his talents and energies. The Spirit trains him to walk in a different
dimension in the Spirit which will actually slow him down and make him more
fruitful.
Partnership
I would like to share with you a personal way in which the Lord has
challenged me to move from discipleship toward partnership with Him.
For several years now I have been seeking the Lord most fervently for a
physical healing. As I have prayed about this, the Spirit enabled me to see that I
need to reorient how I relate to the Father. The Lord wants me to mature in the
way I approach Him in prayer.
In the past, I have approached prayer as the means of getting from God what I
want (which in my case was a healing). I imagined it working something like
this: if I responded properly to all His dealings and had the right kind of faith,
God would then be able to heal me. I saw it like the pins of a lock--once all the
pins of the lock were properly engaged, the lock would snap open, and I would
be healed. So the key to divine healing, in my mind, was getting everything right
all at once.
But there are a couple things wrong with this picture. First, it paints the Father
as a somewhat reluctant giver who will not dispense grace until everything is in
order. But if God’s grace were given to me only when I responded correctly, I
would never have any grace on my life! Second, this skewed picture suggests
that my job is to "jump through heaven’s hoops" so that I can extract from
heaven what I want.
The Lord has “called me higher” to relate to Him on a different level
altogether. Instead of my simply being the supplicant and His being the supplier,
the Lord wants me to come to a “workers together” mentality (1 Corinthians
3:9). I am to share His heart so completely that His desires become my desires,
His plans become my plans, and His work becomes my work. He wants me to be
His partner, someone who so fully shares the pulsations of His heart that my life
becomes an extension of His will and purpose on the earth. When I truly learn to
partner with Christ, it will still be true that it’s God’s will to heal me, but I may
find my healing coming in a way I had not personally anticipated.
The fully mature partner of the Lord Jesus moves in parallel motion with
heaven. He waits upon God until he perceives the heart of the Father, and then
he works on earth in the power of the Spirit to be a catalyst for God’s purposes
to be accomplished here in time and space. Rather than trying to extract his
agenda from God, he is now learning to be a cooperative enforcer of God’s
agenda on earth.
This dimension of life in the Spirit is called “friendship with God.”
 Chapter Fourteen
A Servant, Or A Friend?
Friendship With God
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you
servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called
you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to
you” (John 15:13-15).
I have been in full-time ministry for over fifteen years, and have been, to the
best of my ability, a faithful servant of Jesus. I have worked hard for Him, have
watched His blessings attend my life, and have had the joy of furthering His
kingdom. But I am seeing that there is a level of relationship with Jesus that is
higher than servanthood, and it is that of friendship. O to be a friend of God!
Based upon these words of Jesus in John 15, I would like to suggest some
distinctions between a servant and a friend.
Servant Or Friend?
1. Servanthood is a great attainment, but it is not the highest attainment in
Christ.
Great joy fills the heart when one finally lays his life completely at the feet of
Jesus and says, “I’m Yours, Lord. I will serve You with all my heart and soul.
Whatever You ask of me I will do.” There are many “believers,” but not as many
“servants.” And there are fewer still “friends” of God.
2. A servant is like an employee; a friend is brought into management and
made a co-owner.
3. A servant can be deployed anywhere where there’s a need; the Master has
many menial tasks that need to be done. But a friend is allowed to work in those
areas that are most significant in the eyes of the Master.
4. A friend prays differently from a servant.
A servant desires to move the hand of God; a friend desires to know the heart
of God. Servants are just trying to get the job done, so they plead with heaven to
help them. “Bless my labors, Lord!” the servant cries. But a friend asks, “Lord,
what are You doing? What are You thinking?” A servant wants the Lord to hear
him; a friend wants to hear from the Lord.
A friend won’t harangue God with his own requests but will hold his tongue
until he knows the mind of the Spirit. A servant prays for the blessings he
desires, but a friend seeks to be an intercessor through whom heaven’s will can
come to earth.
The Lord is calling us beyond what has been commonly referred to as
“prevailing prayer.” It is certainly a valid form of prayer, but it is not the highest
form of prayer. The term “prevailing prayer” carries the idea that my task in
prayer is to convince God to supply what I want. Better yet, the Lord is calling
us to “cooperative prayer.” In cooperative prayer, I become the vehicle on earth
to birth through intercession the perfect will of God in heaven.
5. A servant measures things by results, whereas a friend evaluates things
according to the Master’s pleasure.
It’s possible to obtain results in kingdom pursuits but not have the Master’s
full blessing. Someone once said of a certain prominent ministry, “You can’t
knock it, they get results.” But results are not the means of measuring the eternal
value of our ministries. Jesus said there would be many servants with significant
results who would not inherit the kingdom because they didn’t have a
relationship with their Lord (Matthew 7:22). In calling Him “Lord, Lord,” they
were claiming to be His servants. But He said to them, “I never knew you.”
Above all, a friend longs for the smile of Jesus upon what he’s doing.
Whether others think his accomplishments are significant is irrelevant. His only
desire is to do those things that elicit the nodding approval of the Lord Jesus.
6. The issue for a servant is faithfulness (Matthew 25:21); the issue for a
friend is love (John 15:13).
Martha and Mary were two sisters who loved Jesus dearly, but they expressed
their love quite differently. Martha showed her love by serving Jesus faithfully;
Mary showed her love by sitting at Jesus’ feet and hanging on His every word.
Jesus commended Mary as having “chosen that good part, which will not be
taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). As long as she busied herself with faithful
service, Martha would stay at the servant dimension. Mary, however, had a
passion to become the friend of Jesus.
A servant is willing to work for the Master, but a friend wants to be with the
Master.
7. It’s a more demanding commitment to be a friend than a servant.
Any friendship requires investment of time and energy. In one sense it’s easier
to keep our relationship with Jesus at the Master/servant level because friendship
requires more focused energy and larger blocks of time commitment. But the
Master/servant level will never be as rewarding or fulfilling.
 The friend and the servant both work for the Master, but after the work is
done the servant is dismissed whereas the friend sits down with the Master.
8. The most gripping distinction of all is made by Jesus Himself in this
passage. Jesus said that a servant just does what he’s told without necessarily
understanding why he’s doing what he’s doing. But a friend is confided in.
Jesus said, “I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My
Father I have made known to you.” Jesus is saying, “The fact that I have
disclosed to you all things that the Father has spoken to me is the indicator that
you have become My friends.” Jesus treats His friends differently; He confides
in them.
A friend is told the thoughts and intentions behind the plan of action. A
servant is told what to do, but a friend is told why. To say it precisely, Jesus
confides His purposes to His friends.
 Chapter Fifteen
Obedience To His Purposes
Vision Versus Purpose
I have been a man of vision. I have established goals for myself each year and
have urged the leaders in our church to do likewise. Most books on Christian
leadership deal to one degree or another with the necessity of establishing vision,
setting goals, and learning how to evaluate the progress toward those goals.
We adopt a vision for our ministry for this year, and for the next five years,
and for the next ten years. We develop a Vision Statement or a Mission
Statement. We brainstorm what exploits we might accomplish for God’s
kingdom. We are visionary leaders.
With only one slight problem: God doesn’t operate out of vision. He doesn’t
have a vision for your life or for your ministry, and He doesn’t have a vision for
this planet. God only has purpose. He has a purpose for your life and for the
entire human race, and His purposes will be accomplished.
As I speak of “vision” in this sense, I am speaking of that forward-looking
hope of future progress. Vision is hopeful; purpose is as good as done. God does
not merely “hope” that His plans will be fulfilled, for He has determined in
advance that they will be accomplished. Now, God does impart vision to us
(Habakkuk 2:2), but it is always in conformity with His purpose. In other words,
a true vision from God is certain to be fulfilled because it is the purpose of God
revealed in advance.
Much of the time, when we think we’re operating out of godly vision, we’re
merely working in human creativity. This is evidenced by the sheer volume of
goals that we’ve never achieved.
We’re reduced to being visionary when we don’t know God’s purposes. After
getting a general sense of the game plan, servants develop a vision of what they
can do for God; a friend, on the other hand, is God’s confidant who hears His
heart and perceives His purpose for his life and ministry.
Creativity And Obedience
God doesn’t ask us to be creative but to be obedient. Sometimes the creativity
of Christian leaders does damage to the kingdom of God because we mobilize
believers in efforts that didn’t originate in the heart of God. Our good ideas can
actually restrict our ability to share in God’s purposes. The way of God is this:
 “Wait on Me until--until I speak to you.”
I’ve discovered that it’s much easier to be creative than obedient because
creativity requires planning, but obedience requires listening. It’s easier to plan
than to listen. It’s easier to press ahead with my own thoughts than to wait upon
God for His thoughts.
And when you’re waiting on God, there’s no telling when He’s going to come
to you. You might wait for days, weeks, months, or even years. I said, “Lord, I
can come up with ten creative ideas before You even say anything!” That’s
where the real test is, however, because when we finally hear from God His
ideas are always worth the wait. Just one solitary thought of God’s is many times
more effective than our most brilliant profusion of ideas.
This is good news for those who have never felt exceptionally creative in
terms of natural gifting. Some of us have felt inferior when we’ve stood next to
someone with a multitude of talents. But if we’re all called to be obedient rather
than creative, can you understand how this puts us all at the same level? The
naturally creative person has no advantage over the one who feels like a creative
dullard. We’re all reduced to this one common denominator: we must hear from
God. There is great liberty here for those who will receive it.
A servant operates in the vision of what could be; a friend operates in the
confidence of what will be. A friend of God will accomplish far more, for he will
not muddy the waters with his own creative juices. Instead of getting in God’s
way, he will get in God’s ways.
The Ways of God
Here’s the amazing part: when you begin to hear God’s ideas and to act upon
them, others will be astounded at your “creativity.” The reason is simply because
God’s thoughts and ways are so different from ours that when He begins to
reveal His purposes to us they will be strikingly extraordinary.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says
the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
If an idea smells and looks and feels like something you’d come up with, then
be assured--it’s infinitely different from God’s way. God’s way of thinking is not
only in a different ballpark, it’s on a different planet.
One way to know it’s God’s idea is that you would have never come up with
that idea on your own.
God’s ways will always be different from your ways. You can get frustrated
with that, or you can choose to be attracted by that. (God made us to be naturally
attracted to that which is different from ourselves.) Let’s choose to be fascinated
by His ways. The fact that we do not understand His ways should fuel our desire
to know Him better.
Beyond Imagination
Paul writes in Ephesians 3:20, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in
us.” There is a power at work in me that far exceeds my thinking. There is a
power at work in me that far exceeds my imagination. So why limit what God
wants to do in and through my life to the smallness of my own creative thinking?
By God’s grace I’m dispensing with this business of spending time dreaming
up innovative ways to do the work of the kingdom, with pen and notepad in
hand, imagining what I might be able to do for God. Instead, I’m going to give
myself to ardent listening--with a pen and notepad in hand--noting those
promptings and directives that come from the heart of God. Have done with our
own ingenuity, let’s tune into what He wants to do by His incredible power
which resides in and flows through us!
Paul continues, "to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all
generations, forever and ever. Amen" (Ephesians 3:21). My ideas have a way of
directing a certain percentage of attention to myself; His ideas redound only to
His glory. That makes His ideas not only better, but safe.
 Chapter Sixteen
Becoming His Friend
Do not say, “I am God’s friend.” You can say, “God is my Friend” because
that would be true, but it is presumptuous to call yourself a friend of God. That is
for God to decide. He says who His friends are. Thus, you never see anyone in
Scripture claiming to be God’s friend. Abraham did not call himself a friend of
God, it was God who said that Abraham was His friend.
Abraham
Abraham was called the friend of God (James 2:23). He wasn’t a man of
vision; he was a man to whom God chose to reveal His purposes. God
determined that he could confide in Abraham. This is seen so clearly in the
following passage.
Genesis 18:17 And the LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am
doing, 18 since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all
the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have known him, in
order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they
keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may
bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him." 20 And the LORD said,
"Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin
is very grave, 21 I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether
according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know."
22 Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham
still stood before the LORD.
Notice two qualities of spiritual fatherhood (friendship with God) in this
passage: God chose to confide His purposes to Abraham; and God said, “For I
have known him.” Abraham knew God and God knew him.
As Abraham grew in his knowledge of God and God’s purposes, he
eventually came to the place where he was able to pass the ultimate test of
friendship. God needed someone who would prophetically demonstrate many
centuries beforehand the eventual death and resurrection of His Son. It’s as
though God said, “I need someone who will be so surrendered to My purposes
that he will obey Me even to the point of raising a knife over his only son. In so
doing, he will be an object lesson to show how I will kill My only begotten Son.
This would require a very extraordinary man, a man who has come into true
spiritual fatherhood. If such a man were to be found, He would truly be My
friend.”
When God finally made this ultimate request of Abraham, Abraham didn’t
pause for a moment but immediately rose up and took his son on the three-day
journey to the place where he would offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God. When God
saw Abraham’s implicit obedience He said, “Now, here is a friend of Mine!”
All of us owe our relationship with God to the fact that long ago a man
(Abraham) became God’s friend. Abraham is our spiritual father, and we are his
spiritual inheritance. God has a great heritage reserved for His friends.
When you look at the amazing promises that God gave to Abraham, you
realize that Abraham did nothing to incur them All he did was obey God and
believe what God told him. But God enjoyed Abraham so much that He singled
him out for great blessing. There is a great posterity for God’s friends.
The Pathway To Friendship
Someone might ask, “How can I become a friend of God?” The answer is
important because you don’t just decide you’re going to become somebody’s
best friend. Friendship is something that must “click.” There must be a
compatibility of personality, of interests, a certain “chemistry” that makes a
friendship a mutually meaningful relationship. God isn’t the friend of some of us
because He simply can’t relate to us. He knows we love Him, but we’re so self-
absorbed that we keep ourselves at the servant level.
Jesus made it clear that the pathway to friendship is through implicit
obedience. He said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you”
(John 15:14). He was saying, “As you give yourself to radical obedience, the
pathway to friendship with God will open before you.”
The test of friendship is, will you wait until God tells you what to do? When
servants aren’t hearing a clear directive from God, they use their best judgment
and select a course of action. (May the Lord help us to learn that our judgment is
never best.) Servants live by the popular idiom, “You can’t steer a stationary
vehicle,” so they figure they need to step out and just do something. A friend,
however, waits until he hears from God. His consuming passion is to hear and
obey.
Sometimes circumstances scream for immediate action--and there’s no word
from God. “It’s midnight, Lord! I have to make a decision!” God says nothing.
“Lord, now it’s past midnight! What do You want me to do?” Sometimes God
waits past midnight because the discipline of waiting for the Master’s directive is
vital to becoming His friend. This is the fiery test of the servant of God. If he
will wait--even past the deadline if need be--he will learn something about
friendship with God.
We don’t decide to become God’s friend; God invites us upward to that
dimension of relationship. This is the principle of Luke 14:10: “But when you
are invited, go and sit down in the lowest place, so that when he who invited you
comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, go up higher.’ Then you will have glory in the
presence of those who sit at the table with you.” It’s an awesome thing when
God calls us up higher to the place of friendship with Him.
Until then, all we can do is give ourselves to 100% obedience and ask Him to
draw us higher. Ultimately, friendship with God is not something we can
contrive or manage. We are drawn into friendship by the compelling overtures of
the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit reveals to us what it means to be a friend of
the Almighty God of the universe, a prayer begins to arise in our hearts, “Lord,
plant my feet on higher ground.” You cannot plant yourself on higher ground;
you can only cry for Him to draw you. He places the cry in your heart and He
draws you--from beginning to end it is all of Him.
Joshua
Joshua is a great example of a servant who longed to become a friend. This is
seen clearly in this verse:
“So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.
And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young
man, did not depart from the tabernacle” (Exodus 33:11).
Here Moses is rightly called the friend of God. He had come into the highest
dimensions of intimacy with God, “face to face.”
And Joshua is rightly called the servant.
Joshua saw Moses’ friendship with God, and he yearned to have the same
kind of relationship with God. But he realized he had as yet only attained
servanthood. He was a young servant of God with lots of vision and energy, but
as he watched Moses he knew there was more.
So what did Joshua do? Did he just shrug and say, “Well, no sense in killing
myself here, either God chooses you or He doesn’t”? No. Joshua pressed into
God for himself. Even after Moses would return to the camp, Joshua “did not
depart from the tabernacle.” This is the John 15 invitation of Jesus, “Abide in
Me.”
In the final analysis, the chief preoccupation of friends is simply this: to
delight in each other.
Marks Of Friendship
 I want to point to three other qualities that interestingly enough characterize
friends of God.
And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while
the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will
be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days” (Luke 5:34-35).
1. Friends fast. Fasting is the domain of those who have come into true
friendship with Jesus.
“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body,
and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you
should fear: fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I
say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5).
2. Friends fear. Jesus is saying, “My friends, fear Me!” Although friends
have come into wonderful intimacy with God, they have not adopted a casual,
chummy, or flippant attitude toward Him. To the contrary, because they have
come to know Him they fear Him more than ever.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Proverbs
17:17).
3. A friend always loves. A friend of God loves God even in the toughest of
times. This is the litmus test of friendship with God: do I still love Him even
when He allows inexplicable trauma to hit my life?
 Chapter Seventeen
The Bridegroom’s Friend
Our study on friendship with God would not be complete without looking at
the man who is called the friend of Jesus. Read again these words of John the
Baptist:
“He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom,
who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.
Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease”
(John 3:2930).
John had been preaching and baptizing for some time, and Jesus was just new
on the scene. Crowds were starting to gather around Jesus, and so John’s
followers asked his opinion of Jesus. This was John’s response as he described
his relationship to Jesus. John likened Jesus to a “bridegroom” and himself to the
“friend of the bridegroom.” Thus, in an indirect way he called himself the friend
of Jesus.
Perhaps the following diagram of John 3:29 will help us understand this verse
better.

Explanation Of Diagram
John the Baptist paints a word picture by using three characters: a bride, a
bridegroom, and the friend of the bridegroom. In his day, John was speaking
specifically of Jesus as the bridegroom, the Jews as the bride, and he referred to
himself as the friend of the bridegroom. The verse has an application for us
today as well, however. In its contemporary application Jesus is still the
bridegroom, but the bride takes on the fuller meaning of the Church, and the
friend of the bridegroom represents leaders in the body of Christ who are called
of God to prepare the Church for Christ’s return.
Even as John prepared the people for Christ’s first coming, God is wanting to
raise up true friends of Jesus today who will prepare the people for His second
coming.
Wedding Symbolism
This word picture of an impending wedding that John the Baptist paints is
filled with meaning and carries some very instructional principles for us.
Principle #1: The bridegroom “has the bride.”
In other words, the groom possesses her heart. Jesus has the affections of the
Church. Through His sacrificial death, He has won her love, her heart, her sole
devotion. She only has eyes for Him.
He is the rightful owner of her every affection. It is only proper that she be
completely and totally preoccupied with thoughts of and desires for Him.
Principle #2: The role of the friend is to serve the bride until the bridegroom
arrives.
The friend of the bridegroom, in contemporary vernacular, would be called
“the best man.” As the bridegroom’s best friend, it’s his job to help the groom
with wedding preparations.
Since the Bridegroom (Jesus) is away, the friend (a church leader) finds
himself at the side of the Bride (the Church), helping her as the wedding day
approaches. The friend serves her, helps her, protects her, and prepares her for
the big day.
Principle #3: The friend nurtures and feeds the bride’s affections for the
bridegroom.
The Bride of Christ has a problem: the Bridegroom has ascended to heaven
and left her here on earth. And the longer the Bridegroom delays His coming, the
more the Bride becomes distracted with other interests.
She begins to say to the friend, “I know He is wonderful, and I love Him, I
really do. But I remember a time when I was really in love with Him. At one
point I would have given up anything for Him, but now that He’s been gone so
long, I’m not so sure. I mean, look at this neat thing over here. Is He really worth
my saying ‘no’ to these other attractions?”
The Bridegroom’s friend has something to say to her. The reason he’s the
Groom’s friend in the first place is because he has recognized the greatness of
the Groom. He knows the beauty and splendor of the Bridegroom, and in fact he
delights in the Groom himself. So the friend is able to praise the Groom’s beauty
to the Bride.
The friend says, “Listen, don’t look at those other loves. They’re trash. I’m
telling you, you’re the luckiest girl in town. You’ve got the best! He’s the pick of
the crop. You’ve landed the biggest fish in the whole ocean. There is no one else
like Him! All the other virgins are jealous because you’ve got the affections of
the most handsome guy around. He has chosen you. Believe me, you don’t want
to dump Him for some cheap substitute. Save yourself! Keep yourself pure and
chaste, exclusively for Him!”
So the friend reminds her of the Bridegroom’s beauty. He talks of His fiery
eyes, His shining face, the delightful words of His mouth, and how much He
loves her. And she says, “Yes, yes! You’re right! How could I have almost
forgotten? He is beautiful beyond description; He is the lover of my soul. I must
keep myself only for Him!”
In this way he is serving as a true friend of the Bridegroom.
The issue for the Bride is this: Will she keep her love pure and wholly
devoted to the Bridegroom for the duration that His coming is delayed?
Principle #4: A friend must guard his heart because of the beauty of the bride.
The friend’s temptation, while the Bridegroom is away, is to flirt with the
Bride. She is ripe with passions and affections, and she can be taken advantage
of right now. She is incredibly beautiful, she has a lot to give, and he could
exploit the Bridegroom’s absence by courting the Bride’s affections.
While he is serving her, it is only proper that the Bride render due honor to the
Groom’s friend. But she ought not share the affections she has bottled up and
reserving for the Bridegroom--not even with His friend.
If the Groom’s friend is a true friend, he will flee any opportunity to gain the
affections of the Bride, but instead will protect and reserve her affections for the
Bridegroom.
The friend here represents church leaders who are called by Christ to serve
His Bride. Many pastors and leaders have allowed the Bride to place improper
affections upon them. Not only have they allowed it, they’ve enjoyed it. I can
speak candidly here because I am the first of offenders.
Leaders, if we are true friends of Christ, we will conduct ourselves in such a
way that the bride is not taken by our own abilities but rather is enthralled more
and more with beauty of Christ’s face.
Principle #5: A friend decreases.
John said, “For He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). John was
prepared the decrease, but even so it was a painful thing. John discovered that
once Jesus showed up, people weren’t so interested in hearing John’s message
anymore.
Before the Bridegroom comes back, the friend is laying his life down for the
Bride. He’s serving, giving, helping, protecting, encouraging, guiding, and
sacrificing for the Bride--all because the Bridegroom is his Friend. But
everything changes when the Bridegroom returns. Suddenly, the friend is
completely forgotten by the Bride. Her Lover is back, and the friend doesn’t
even enter her thoughts.
At this point, it would be tempting for the friend to feel somewhat abandoned.
I can suppose him griping to the Bridegroom, “Hey, while You were gone, I did
everything for You; and now that You’ve arrived, it’s as though I don’t exist.”
And he’s right. The Bride has quite forgotten him. It’s because the friend doesn’t
have the Bride, the Groom does.
The true friend of the Groom, however, is glad to decrease. The friend’s
fulfillment comes in seeing the undistracted delight in the eyes of the Bride and
Groom as they enjoy their reunion one with the other. John the Baptist was a true
friend to Jesus, for he said, “The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears
him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of
mine is fulfilled.”
John is saying, “Before the Bridegroom showed up, I was the focus of
attention among the people. Now that He has appeared, He is getting more and
more attention by the people and my crowds are getting smaller and smaller.
And I’m rejoicing about this! The fact that my popularity is dwindling and His is
increasing fulfills my joy.”
May the Lord raise up many such friends of the Bridegroom in this hour, who
will be useful vessels to prepare the way for Christ’s second coming.
Hegai
Jesus said, “And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for
the kingdom of heaven's sake” (Matthew 19:12). One such eunuch was John the
Baptist. He remained celibate in order to give himself wholeheartedly to the
kingdom of God.
In ancient times, kings would surround themselves with many eunuchs. In
fact, there were certain responsibilities with which eunuchs alone were entrusted.
We see this clearly in the Book of Esther. King Ahasuerus of Persia had many
eunuchs in his service, but the foremost eunuch was a man by the name of
Hegai.
Hegai is introduced in the following verse: “Now when the turn came for
Esther the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his
daughter, to go in to the king, she requested nothing but what Hegai the king's
eunuch, the custodian of the women, advised. And Esther obtained favor in the
sight of all who saw her” (Esther 2:15).
Here’s the background to this verse. King Ahasuerus had launched a search
for a new Queen, and many young virgins from across the land had been brought
into the palace and were being prepared to meet the King. The woman of his
choosing would become Queen. Esther was one of the selected virgins, and she
was undergoing many months of beauty treatments in preparation for her
presentation to King Ahasuerus. Hegai, the king's eunuch, was in charge of this
preparatory process.
King Ahasuerus placed a eunuch as custodian over Esther for one very
specific reason: he was safe company for the Queen. As a eunuch, Hegai would
have no personal desires toward Esther whom he served. He could serve her in
the most intimate fashion without ever desiring her for himself.
Spiritual Eunuchs
God is raising up “spiritual eunuchs” in this hour. I do not mean He is simply
raising up those who will take a vow of sexual abstinence. More than that, He is
raising up “spiritual eunuchs” who will have had cut away from their lives every
desire for t he attention and affecti ons of people. He will be able to entrust to
these “spiritual eunuchs” the most sacred and intimate task of preparing the
Bride for her wedding day.
Because of the cutting away that has taken place in their hearts, these leaders
will be qualified to prepare the Bride for Christ’s return. They will have no
desire for the affections of the Bride.
But in order to serve the King in this most intimate way, these leaders will
have known the excruciating pain of having everything cut away from them that
remotely desires the praise of man.
Instead of desiring human affirmation and recognition, these leaders will only
desire to do the pleasure of their Lord.
These spiritual eunuchs will be true friends of the Bridegroom.
 Chapter Eighteen
Friendship With God: The Pain And The Glory
“But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than
a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ’Behold, I send My messenger
before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.’ Assuredly, I say to
you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the
Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he”
(Matthew 11:9-11).
Jesus said that John was “more than a prophet.” It seems to me that he
displayed all of the five-fold giftings. He functioned as an apostle, a prophet, an
evangelist, a teacher, and even pastor (see Ephesians 4:11). He was mightily
gifted and anointed. And yet Jesus said, “he who is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he.”
I’m a long way from fully understanding that statement of Christ, but I see
this much: There are those who aren’t highly gifted or anointed by God. They
are very simple people, they may not have many leadership skills, and perhaps
the best they can do is serve in a corner -- maybe mopping the floor, or cleaning
the toilets. But even though these servants are not highly talented, they do what
they can do, faithfully loving the Lord in purity and simplicity, using the very
little they have to wash the feet of Jesus. In heaven, that kind of love will be
considered great and will be rewarded greatly because it wasn’t a love that was
kindled by a desire to attain great accomplishments.
They didn’t love Jesus because He gave them a ministry, or a following, or
honor among men. They just loved Jesus because of who He is. They could have
wished for more, but they served God faithfully without self-pity or bitterness,
even though the best they could do was the most menial of tasks. Their
faithfulness had nothing to do with ministry function but had only to do with
relationship. They didn’t serve because of human recognition but because their
hearts were His. In eternity, the Lord will affirm that kind of love as the greatest.
I am discovering it’s possible to be successful before men but barren before
God. The Lord is teaching me that my sense of success is to be found in His
presence. When I am relating to Him in abandoned love I am successful. Period.
Ministry accomplishments can deceive me into thinking they are the measure of
God’s approval on my life. There is a place in God where I really can gain my
sense of identity and fulfillment by worshiping Him and gazing upon His face.
I’ve caught a glimpse of this, and I’m after it with all my heart.
The Place Of Greatness
What made John the Baptist the greatest prophet of all time?
It was nothing in John that made him the greatest prophet, because we can
look in the Bible and find other prophets who had much more spectacular
ministries. Elijah and Elisha saw incredible miracles and supernatural signs
through their ministries, and John had no miracles. Isaiah and Jeremiah wrote
books of the Bible; John wrote none. Moses had overpowering encounters with
the visible, awesome glory of God -- John never experienced anything that
dramatic in his lifetime.
So what made John the Baptist the greatest prophet of all time? It was this: He
was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus. Because he served the feet of Jesus, he was
the greatest prophet. Greatness is found in proximity to Jesus. This is what made
the twelve “apostles of the Lamb” so great and distinct from all other apostles:
they served the Bridegroom. So their greatness had nothing to do with who they
were but with who Jesus is. He is the Great One! He is the altogether glorious
Bridegroom!
In the kingdom, it’s not what you know but Who you know. God gives
preferential treatment to His sons. It’s like the business owner who might have
several employees more qualified for the position, but who does he pick to
succeed him as General Manager? His own son. Jesus didn’t have to do anything
to get the Father to be with Him. He didn’t have to pass any tests; He didn’t have
to accomplish anything; the Father was with Him from day one because of their
relationship.
The disciples were able to move out in healing and deliverance ministry, not
because of what they had learned or attained but because of their proximity of
relationship to Jesus. It’s interesting to note that the one time they can’t minister
effectively to a demoniac, it’s at a time when Jesus has gone away and is on the
Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John. The other disciples begin
to feel the absence of Jesus, even as the Israelites felt the absence of Moses when
he stayed up on Mt. Sinai for forty days to be with God. In Moses’ absence, the
Israelites ended up erecting a golden calf. The disciples didn’t fashion a gold calf
while Jesus was on the mountain, but they did lose it. They felt distant from
Jesus and thus were unable to cast the demon out of the boy.
The Lord will only work with those who remain close to Him. The Old
Testament prophets were simply men who knew God. They were devoted to the
presence and face of God. Elijah had this expression when referring to the Lord:
“before whom I stand.”
Above all else, Elijah was a man who lived in the presence of God.
An important ingredient to doing kingdom exploits is to stay close to the feet
of Jesus. Those who really know Him do get preferential treatment.
Preferential Treatment
So you want to be God’s friend, do you? Do you want to be a John the
Baptist, wear camel’s hair, and eat locusts and wild honey? Do you want to be
imprisoned in the prime of your life, and then cut off from the land of the living?
You may want to reconsider, and look at how God treats His friends.
It’s quite illuminating to study the lives of the prophets and see how God
treats His friends. For starters, look at Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived a very unhappy
life, in worldly terms that is. He paid a high price in loneliness because of his
willingness to accept the divine call. He was reproached, ostracized, persecuted,
misunderstood, “a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth”
(Jeremiah 15:10). (It’s interesting to note that many of the Jews thought Jesus
was Jeremiah come back again, which shows they acknowledged the reproach
and ostracization that Christ experienced.)
Jeremiah was not permitted to take a wife or to have children (Jeremiah 16:2);
he wasn’t allowed to attend funerals (16:5); he wasn’t allowed to go to parties
(16:8); he couldn’t even attend weddings (16:9). His social life was lousy! There
was only one source of joy in Jeremiah’s life: “Your words were found, and I ate
them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called
by Your name, O LORD God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16). On the human level
Jeremiah appeared to live a very underprivileged lifestyle, but at the internal
level he knew the incredible joy of feasting on God’s words. There is a joy in
eating the words of God’s mouth that exceeds that of all other earthly joys
combined. Jeremiah had tapped into a dimension of love relationship with God
that was worth all the pain that the rejection and resistance brought him.
God’s Kind Of Love
There’s another prophet in the Bible who was totally surrendered and
consecrated to the purposes of God, and he paid a steep price as a result.
Because of his abandonment to God, God came to him and said, “I’m going to
kill your wife.” Before you read any further, can you guess whose wife the Lord
killed because of this man’s consecration and obedience to God?
He was a great prophet and a true friend of God. But he paid a very high
personal price to be used of the Lord. I’m referring to the prophet Ezekiel. You
can read the story in Ezekiel 24, of how God snuffed out his wife’s life. Not only
did God kill Ezekiel’s wife, but then God proceeded to tell Ezekiel how he was
to handle his grief. God told him:
“Son of man, behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with one
stroke; yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh
in silence, make no mourning for the dead; bind your turban on your head, and
put your sandals on your feet; do not cover your lips, and do not eat man’s bread
of sorrow.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife
died; and the next morning I did as I was commanded (Ezekiel 24:16-18).
What incredible consecration when a man is so surrendered to God that God
can even take his wife away from him, and he continues to serve God with
devotion and passion! Some of the people who suffered the most in the Bible
had the greatest anointing on their lives. Their willingness to embrace the
anointing of death qualified them to share in Christ’s sufferings as they travailed
together with all creation for the release of God’s glory in the earth.
So you want to be God’s friend. Are you sure? He doesn’t treat His friends
like men treat their friends. Paul realized this, because when he said he wanted to
know Him, he realized he’d have to get to know Him in the fellowship of
sharing in His sufferings, being conformed to His death. Because there’s really
no other way to get to know Him. If you want to be Jesus’ friend, you must go
with Him to the cross. If a great revelation of Christ has come to you, know this:
great pain is also about to come to you. You cannot see God without paying a
great price personally. Ezekiel discovered this. O what glory he saw, caught up
into the very heavens! But God killed his wife, and gave him very painful
relationships with his Jewish elders. Jesus knew God best and suffered the most.
Look at the prophets, and for all their knowing of God and insight into His glory,
they were among the most persecuted, harassed, misunderstood, rejected, lonely
people on the face of the planet. God called Abraham His friend because he was
willing to kill his only son. Hosea had to marry a harlot who would spurn
Hosea’s love and faithfulness and desert him. Paul had an incredible revelation
of Christ, but he also had the suffering to match (2 Corinthians 11:24-28).
Friendship with God is a pathway of pain, but also of great glory.
The Glory Of God
Why did these men endure such pain? Because they had tapped into an inner
wellspring, they had an inner life with God in which the glory of God
maintained, refreshed, and energized them.
O the joy of knowing the glory of God! O the delight of intimacy with His
face. Even the roughest personalities disintegrate in the presence of God’s
manifest glory.
Simon Peter is a great example here. It’s fascinating to notice what happened
to Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus
in glory, and Peter saw it all. When Moses and Elijah began to depart, Peter just
had to speak up. Let’s read the account again:
But Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep; and when they were
fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men who stood with Him. Then it
happened, as they were parting from Him, that Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is
good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for
Moses, and one for Elijah"--not knowing what he said (Luke 9:32-33).
Peter was so enraptured with the glory of God that he tried to prolong the
glory by suggesting that Jesus postpone the closing of the meeting. He was so
caught up (inebriated) in the glory of God that he didn’t even know what he was
saying.
Now, Peter was not one of these effusive, emotive, gushy-weepy types. He
was a rather coarse, rough, opinionated, confrontative, impulsive, outspoken
fellow, with a prophetic sort of personality. In other words, he wasn’t the kind of
guy that wanted unending prayer meetings (he kept falling asleep at the most
important one), long worship services, just loving to hang out in the presence of
God. But here’s matter-of-fact, let’s-get-on-with-it Peter, so caught up in the
glory of God that he just wants to build some tents right there so they can all
keep the meeting going.
Peter is so overcome with the touch of God’s glory that he’s reduced to a
blubbering mess. Even as the glory of God melted tough-as-nails Peter in this
way, the Lord wants to melt your heart as well with the glory of His manifest
presence. It is this wellspring of glory that He opens up to His most intimate
friends. There is no price tag too high for living in the glorious presence of our
Lord Jesus. Bring on the pain, it is a light and momentary affliction. We are His
friends, and we are destined for great glory!
 Chapter Nineteen
Beginning Fervency
“Ask Of Me”
At some point in the eternal councils of the Godhead, when the plan of
redemption was being formulated in the wisdom of God, the Father determined
an inheritance for His Son. This is reflected in Psalm 2:8, where the Father is
speaking to His only begotten Son, and He says, “Ask of Me, and I will give You
the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession.”
The Father is telling His Son that He will give Him an inheritance in the nations,
a people called out from the nations of the world who will be totally His. In fact,
the Father is saying, “These people will be so completely Yours that You will
have the affections of their heart, their soul, their mind, and their strength. You
will possess the entirety of their being.”
The Father is speaking of the church, and He is describing the depth and
intensity of passion that the church will have for the Son of God. It’s the love
and devotion of the Bride for the heavenly Bridegroom.
The Son Asks
During Jesus’ ministry on earth, the point came when Jesus actually called
upon the promise of Psalm 2. We see this at the end of His ministry, just before
He embraces the Father’s cup. He is with His disciples, offering up what we call
His “High Priestly prayer” in John 17 -the last words of Jesus that Scripture
records before Gethsemane -- and He ends that prayer with a very important
statement. These are the last words of a Man who knows He’s about to die. He’s
not wasting words, but He’s expressing the depths of the passions of His heart
because these are His last moments with His disciples.
Look with me at the last verse in Jesus’ final prayer: “And I have declared to
them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may
be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). Here’s what Jesus, in essence, is saying,
“Father, You promised Me an inheritance among the nations, if I’d ask. You told
Me You were going to prepare a Bride that would love Me with the kind of love
with which You love Me. You said I only had to ask, and you’d give Me a people
who would be so committed to Me that they would love Me with the very love
of God. So I’m asking, Father. Give Me this Bride!”
Jesus’ last great cry before His passion was for His promised Bride. “I’m
praying that she not forget Me, Father, and that she not be distracted by the
pursuit of this world, but that she love Me like You love Me Father!”
In this verse, Jesus also reveals how this love will be awakened in the hearts
of His people, and it’s through the revelation of the Father.
Jesus is saying, “Father, I have declared Your name to them; I’ve shown them
Your character and nature, and after I’ve ascended to Your throne I will continue
to reveal Your name to them through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And as they
see You, I know that they will be quickened with a holy love for Me.” When we
touch the love of the Father through the Spirit of revelation, our hearts are
awakened to true bridal affections for the Lord Jesus.
To Be His Inheritance
It’s a marvelous thing when Jesus becomes our possession, but there’s
something even more glorious that Jesus is looking for, and that’s when we
become His possession. The apostle Paul points to this in Ephesians 1, when he
writes, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined
according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel
of His will” (Eph. 1:11). It’s true that we have a fantastic inheritance in Christ,
and multiplied thousands of sermons have been dedicated to this glorious truth.
But Paul doesn’t stop there. He continues a few verses later, “the eyes of your
understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His
calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph.
1:18). Paul takes some time to talk about their inheritance in Christ, but then he
prays that they’ll move past that and grow into the even greater understanding of
what it means to be Christ’s inheritance.
Jesus is looking for something in you. He wants to give out to you, bless you,
heal you, restore you, etc., but it’s all for the purpose of eventually bringing you
to the place where you live to touch His heart.
It’s beyond our ability to comprehend, but there is something that God doesn’t
have. You have something that God the Son doesn’t have and that He greatly
desires. It’s the fully voluntary love of the Bride for her Beloved. The
extravagantly lavish passion of the church for the Lord Jesus is His rightful
inheritance.
Beginning Fervency
The theme of John 17:26 is expanded for us in an entire book of the Bible --
the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon lays out in eight chapters how the
Lord fulfills John 17:26 in our hearts. Mike Bickle describes this book as “The
Progression of Holy Passion.” It lays out the pattern of God’s dealings in fervent
believers as He takes them step by step from self-centered Christianity to God-
centered Christianity. This section is dedicated to outlining very briefly the
major themes of this fascinating book, to help us see with broad strokes how the
Lord leads us into full and mature bridal love. I suggest you read the chapters of
this section with your Bible open to the Song Of Solomon.
The Song of Solomon shows how the Lord matures the fervency of His
people. He does it by revealing three things about Himself: 1) He reveals the
beauty of His person; 2) He affirms our progress with His lavish affections; and
3) He lets us experience the delightful sweetness of intimacy with Him. These
three things continually draw the Bride forward into increasingly abandoned
love and obedience. This is true mature love -- when all other affections have
been completely abandoned for the love of the Son of God and the delight of
doing His will.
The book begins with the great bridal cry, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of
his mouth” (1:2). This is the deep cry that the Holy Spirit is birthing in the
Church in this hour, “Oh Lord Jesus, give me the intimacy of the kisses of Your
mouth!” Then the Shulamite expresses her two-fold life vision: “Draw me away!
We will run after you” (1:4). She is saying that she lives only for two things: for
the ecstacy of being drawn away with Him in intimacy, and for the delight of
running with Him in active ministry in the nations. She wants to find the proper
balance between intimacy and service, but it’s going to take several chapters for
her to find it. He has placed this prayer deep in her heart, and the rest of the book
is the unfolding development of how He draws her into intimacy in the midst of
active servanthood. This is her life’s goal, but it is not yet her attainment.
This two-fold goal of her life is summarized in the great commandment: to
love God (“draw me away”), and to serve one’s neighbor (“we will run after
you”). At times there can be a very real tension between these two interests,
characterized most famously in the personalities of Mary and Martha. Mary just
wanted to love; Martha just wanted to serve, and as a result they clashed. The
zeal to serve can sometimes distract us from the intimacy of relationship Jesus
longs to have with us.
At the beginning of the book, the maiden is fervent but immature. This is an
important distinction because fervency is not maturity.
However, if you’re not fervent, you’ll never mature. Fervency opens up the
pathway to maturity. Fervency is the means; maturity is the goal. Fervency must
remain with us through every step of our Christian journey if we are to mature
into complete bridal love.
 Chapter Twenty
Her Spiritual Journey Begins
Mistreatment From Christians
Early in her Christian walk the Bride experiences the jealousy of others in the
body of Christ who are not as fervent as she is. They’re angry at her (1:6)
because her zeal for Jesus is making them look bad. So they put her to work in
the vineyards, hoping to squelch her youthful fervency. Because of her desire to
please the Lord, she ends up overextending and not properly nurturing her own
relationship with Christ.
In her frustration, she overreacts a little bit and says, “Forget it, I’m not going
to run anymore. All I want, Jesus, is to be with You” (see 1:7).
He responds by coming to her and comforting her. He says, “It’s okay;
everything’s going to be all right because I love you. As far as I’m concerned,
you’re absolutely beautiful” (see 1:8-10). So He heals her with His affirmations
of affection. The revelation of how much He loves us is the healing balm when
we’ve known the pain of rejection.
Spiritual Pleasure
Because of the harsh way she was treated in the body of Christ, the Lord
allows her to come aside and just be with Him for a while. He wants to
completely win her heart by showing her the delight of His countenance. He’s
treating her as He does many young believers:
He opens up to her the glory of His presence and allows her to experience the
delight of His love. She is in the “honeymoon season” with Christ.
The first couple chapters describe it this way: She’s behind a protective wall,
on a bed, under an apple tree, at a table, and she’s eating cakes with raisins. The
Lord is embracing her on the bed, and she is totally intoxicated with His love.
She is saying things like, “Jesus, You are so sweet! I just love-love-love You!”
She has discovered why she was created. “I’ve found the purpose for living!”
she cries. She is experiencing the glory of the Lord, and I mean, He is laying it
on thick.
Here in the early days of her fervency, she is actually tasting of the depths of
spiritual pleasure that God has designed for every believer. She is realizing that
there is no pleasure equal to the pleasure of being moved upon by the Holy
Spirit. She doesn’t know it, but He’s getting her hooked for life. She’s getting
addicted to God’s glory and to the sweet wine of fellowshipping with the Holy
Spirit.
In several places throughout the book, the Lord Jesus comes to her and
reveals a new aspect of His personhood. The first revelation she has of Him is
right here: she sees Him as the affectionate, loving, soul-satisfying, sweet Savior.
He is much more than that, but this is all she knows right now. As far as she is
concerned, this is Christianity. She feels so very blessed, and she’s convinced
this is how it should always be. She is self-absorbed, however, and doesn’t know
it. Her chief goal in life right now is to be blessed, to enjoy the Lord, and to feel
His presence. She does not yet have a passion to do His will. She is fervent but
immature.
In 2:7, the Lord as much as says to those who know her, “Yes, I know she’s
self-absorbed right now and that’s she’s cut herself off from the body for a
season, but leave her alone. I’m doing something very important in her. If she is
to grow into full maturity, she has got to experience the pleasure of intimate
communion with Me. Don’t bother her right now.”
First Stage Of Maturity
The progression of her maturity is seen in four “phases” or “stages” in the
Song Of Solomon. Her first stage of maturity is depicted in 1:13-14 -- “A bundle
of myrrh is my beloved to me, that lies all night between my breasts. My
beloved is to me a cluster of henna blooms in the vineyards of En Gedi.” Twice
in these phrases she says, “My Beloved is to me.” In other words, she’s saying,
“He’s mine, all mine!” As far as she’s concerned, God exists for her. Her
immaturity is seen in her selfabsorption. And yet the Lord loves her fervency
and enjoys her in her immaturity.
Right now she sees Him only as her inheritance, but He wants her to become
His inheritance. Her goal is to feel God's presence, but His goal is to make her a
co-equal partner that will run with Him in intimacy and servanthood to do
warfare in the nations. She’s feeling like, “As long as You embrace me with one
hand, and pop raisin cakes in my mouth with Your other hand, I will love You
totally, and tell everybody about You.” His question of her, however, is, “What
will you do when I turn it around and I extract from you the fact that you are My
inheritance -- that I don’t just exist for you, but that you exist for Me?”
She isn’t even close to being ready to face that issue at this point.
You see, the ultimate goal of Christianity is not, in the final analysis, to enjoy
God -- even though the enjoyment of God is essential. The goal of Christianity is
to be the inheritance of Christ Jesus and to love him with full obedience.
 Her Disobedience
In 2:8f, Jesus comes to her and challenges her to leave her comfort zone. He
shows Himself to her like a gazelle who leaps on mountains and skips on hills,
and this is an entirely new side of Him that she’s never seen before. She’s only
known Him as her lover on the bed, and she’s not comfortable with this new face
He’s revealing of Himself. This is her second revelation of Him -- she is seeing
Him as the King of the Nations.
Generally, mountains in the Bible typify three things: obstacles, demonic
powers, and nations. She is seeing Jesus as King of the nations who leaps over
every obstacle and challenge with absolute ease, and He invites her to join Him
in His triumphal procession. He’s saying, “Come with Me; let’s conquer the
nations together.”
She says, “Why are you doing all this leaping stuff? Come back to bed! The
music is perfect, the food is great, and it’s just You and me. Come here and pop
another raisin cake into my mouth.”
He says, “You’ve been on the bed long enough. Rise up and come with Me.
Let’s take on the mountains together. Learn to run with Me in the nations.”
In the end, she’s actually going to tell the Lord “no.” In 2:17 she’s basically
going to say, “I don’t like mountain climbing. Come back to bed; we had a good
thing going.” Since He’s intent on leaping on mountains, she ends up telling Him
to turn and go by Himself. For her part, she’s staying behind the protective wall,
under the shade tree, on the bed.
Her disobedience is rooted not so much in rebellion as it is in fear. She’s
afraid to get off the bed she knows in order to run with Him over mountains
she’s never scaled before. She still longs for Him desperately but she’s afraid to
leave her safe surroundings. She has yet to learn that it’s safer to be walking out
on the stormy water with Jesus than to be in the boat without Him.
But even though she’s in disobedience at this point in her walk, she’s
beginning to recognize something, and she gives expression to it in 2:16, “My
Beloved is mine and I am His.” This statement reflects “phase 2” of her
progression in holy passion. In “phase 1” she was saying, “He’s mine, He’s
mine.” Now she is saying, “He’s my inheritance, no question, but I am seeing for
the first time that He’s claiming an inheritance in me.” She’s not ready to be that
inheritance for Him, but she’s catching a vision for the kind of commitment that
He’s wanting to extract from her.
His Chastisement
Since she has said “no” to Him in 2:17, she’s going to come under divine
chastisement in Chapter Three. He loves her too much to let her stay in
disobedience. He’s going to pry her fingers loose from the things that keep her in
bondage. In 2:17 she basically said, “Turn, go by Yourself; I’m staying in bed.”
So in Chapter Three He does just that: He turns and removes from her the
awareness of His presence. (He never actually leaves her, but He does withdraw
her ability to sense His presence.)
She is totally unprepared for Him to withdraw His presence, and she cries out
her distress in 3:1, “AHH! I can’t live like this! I was created to know Your
presence. God, where are You?” She’s willing to do anything to ease the pain, so
in 3:2 she says, “Okay, I’ll get out of bed.” She has touched too much of God to
live without His smile. She agrees to get off
her bed of self-absorption, and she goes out to the city. The city is where
people are, so she is accepting the Lord’s call to reach out to others. She’s
hooked. She’ll do anything to find the sweetness of His presence again.
So she’s beginning to embrace the second commandment -- to love others as
herself.
Her obedience is quickly rewarded in 3:4, and He renews the sense of His
presence. She learns that she will know His presence only as she reaches beyond
herself to others. She feels like she’s really starting to master this thing called
obedience, but she doesn’t realize how much she still has to learn. She doesn't
realize there are many areas of her heart that are not fully surrendered to the
Lord. And He isn’t going to be satisfied until He possesses her fully -- in
thought, word, and deed. He’s looking for more than external acts of obedience;
He’s wanting to conquer every chamber of her inner being.
The Shelter Of His Presence
As she returns to serving others in the church, she’s afraid because the last
time she served in the church she got hurt. So now in 3:6-11, Jesus gives her an
awesome revelation of the absolute security of serving Him. “Where I am,” He
says in 3:7, “there is absolute safety.” She realizes He will protect her as she
returns to where the people are.
She wants to object, “But they treated me so badly, I don't want to be with
them.” But He assures her, “You need to understand, it's My body; it's the only
one I have on the earth. If you want to be with Me, that's where I am.”
She comes to the realization that even though being in the body of Christ may
be painful at times, ultimately it’s the only safe place to be. And He begins to
show her His glorious perspective on the church. Her commitment to the church
is the thing that opens to her the glorious dimensions that await her.
 Chapter Twenty-One
She Embraces His Disciplines
Equipped for Spiritual Warfare
In 4:1-5, He begins to equip her for spiritual warfare, and the way He does it
is really incredible. He does it by telling her how He views her. He’s going to
begin to pour His affection upon her and call her forth by affirming the
wonderful things He sees in her, even though they are only beginning to appear
in her life. He begins to call forth her virtues as though they were fully formed.
Yes, He disciplines her -- but He wraps it in profuse affirmation. He motivates
her with love rather than with judgment. She is blown away by how Jesus views
her in her sincerity and fervency, even though she is weak and struggling. He
sees how she longs for Him in the midst of her frailty and fears, and His heart
melts!
This is one of the chief ways Jesus awakens passion and love in the hearts of
His people: He expresses His passion for them. You will never be more
passionate for Him than the revelation you carry of His passion for you. When
you see how much God enjoys you, something is set free in your heart to enjoy
Him like you never have before.
Amazingly, He speaks over her life as though she were fully mature. He sees
glorious qualities in her that are only in seed form, and He extols them as though
they were full-grown. He speaks prophetically over her life according to what
He sees her becoming, and this is how He calls her forward into greater maturity.
He declares her readiness to do battle long before she herself feels ready.
Her Increasing Consecration
His profuse affection totally melts her heart. In 4:6 she responds to Him, “If
my obedience wins this kind of affection from you, then okay, I will embrace the
call of 2:10. I will go to the mountain!” And here she recognizes it as “the
mountain of myrrh.” Myrrh is a burial spice, and it was used in Jesus’ burial.
Thus, myrrh in the Bible can be seen as a symbol of the cross. In 4:6 she is
saying yes to the mountain of myrrh -Mount Calvary -- the cross. She is saying,
“I’ll go all the way. I’ll embrace Your death.”
This is an awesome moment in her pilgrimage. When she says “yes” to the
cross, the whole book shifts gears. Everything changes. Her willingness to
embrace the cross produces a most powerful response from Him. When she says
she’s willing to be obedient even unto death, something flips inside His heart,
and He comes back with an incredible deluge of affection. This is her turning
point in the book.
In verses 7-15, He proceeds to dizzy her with a veritable litany of affection
and delight. It’s here that we come to the main verse of the entire book: “You
have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; you have ravished my heart with
one look of your eyes, with one link of your necklace” (4:9). For the first time
He calls her “My spouse,” and He says, “You have ravished My heart.” She’s not
perfect by any means, and she has only expressed a willingness to embrace the
cross, but He is ravished over her. If there’s anything we need a greater
understanding of, it’s how Jesus views us when we’re making sincere
commitments to serve Him, even though we sometimes fail. He sees our
shortcomings, but because of the fervency of our hearts and sincere desire to
walk in obedience, He is ravished by just one look of our eyes!
And make no mistake, His love is sweeping her off her feet! He dizzies her
with His torrent of affirmation. She is so captured by His affections for her that
she makes an absolutely incredible statement. She is coming to the conclusion
that if He loves her this much, then it’s safe to obey Him. She decides that
anything that comes from His hand is for her good because she realizes how
ravished He is over her.
She has seen His love for her, and she is about to commit herself to absolute,
unequivocal obedience -- because she realizes that her obedience is the only
thing that opens her heart to discovering more of His beauty.
Before we look at her incredible statement to which I’ve referred, let me
remind you of the two levels of obedience she has already embraced. The first
stage of obedience was in 3:2 when she rose up and began to reach out to other
people in their needs. The second stage of obedience was in 4:6 when she
embraced the mountain of myrrh (the cross). And now she commits to a third
level of obedience in 4:16 as she says, “Awake,
O north wind.” Here’s the incredible thing she’s saying: “That’s it! If
embracing the cross gets this kind of affection from You, then I’m 100% Yours.
Whatever it takes. Do whatever it takes for my heart to be totally Yours.” Now
that’s dangerous praying!
Inviting The Ultimate Test
In 4:16 she invokes the north winds and south winds. The north winds are the
bitter cold winds of winter. It’s almost unbelievable, but she’s actually praying,
“Let the winter season come!” She is inviting a level of God’s dealings in her
life that He isn’t even requiring of her. But she’s not a masochist, so she also
asks for some south winds of blessing and refreshing to come from time to time
or else she wouldn’t survive. Most saints pray or rebuke the north winds away,
but she is so captured by His love that she is completely abandoning herself to
His purposes.
To illustrate how God uses winter seasons in our lives, let me use the example
of our New York State highways. Before winter hits, our N.Y. roads appear to be
in excellent condition, ready for the rigors of winter.
But there are small fissures, cracks, and imperfections in the pavement which
are not visible to the naked eye. Water finds its way into the hidden cracks and
flaws, and then freezes in the cold. When the water freezes, it expands, pushing
the pavement apart. Soon, large potholes appear everywhere. The weaknesses
were there all along, but it wasn’t until the cold of winter that the fault lines
beneath the surface became evident. In a similar way, God takes us through
winter seasons (spiritually) to reveal the hidden imperfections of our hearts that
we couldn’t see before. You can’t deal with something until you see it.
The north wind represents the winds of adversity and crisis, and the south
wind represents the refreshing winds of the Holy Spirit. All of us prefer the
warm summer winds of the Holy Spirit’s quickening, but the cold winds of
calamity are equally necessary at the proper times in our lives. It has been my
observation in the current stirrings of the Holy Spirit that both the north and
south winds are blowing across the land. Those in the summer season are being
refreshed with laughter and drunkenness in the Spirit; those in the winter season
are being devastated with calamity and crisis. Both winds are of God and are
equally necessary for the harvest He is cultivating in our lives. If you’re in the
cold of winter, don’t become envious over those who are enjoying the warm
summer breezes of the Holy Spirit. As surely as that person will someday feel
the north wind, so too you will soon enjoy the south wind.
So at this point in her walk the Bride is saying, “Awake oh north winds. I
know that I am so safe in Your love, Lord, that I’ll be able to handle anything
You might have to do to reveal the hidden flaws in my life that keep me from
being Your full possession. If You touch an area of my life, I know it’s because
You will make me to become the full inheritance that Your Father promised
You.” In 4:16b she acknowledges that her life is His garden, and she knows that
the winter season is necessary if the spices that He enjoys are to flow from her
life.
He sees the sincerity of her cry to be totally His, and so even though she
doesn’t fully realize what she has asked for, He decides to answer her prayer and
send the north winds. That’s what happens in Chapter Five.
He takes her through the greatest test of her life. In Chapter Three she was
disciplined because of her disobedience, but now she’s going to be disciplined
because of her obedience.
The Two-Fold Test Of Maturity
We now come to Chapter Five where she enters the greatest test of her life.
Jesus reveals Himself to her in 5:2 in an entirely new way.
Coming to her with dew-covered hair, He is the Jesus of the Garden of
Gethsemane. He is going to lead her into what the Mystics have called “the dark
night of the soul.”
This ultimate test has two prongs to it. It begins with a “spiritual blackout” --
she loses all awareness of God’s presence in her life (5:6). She finds herself in a
place of spiritual trauma, and every effort to find God is met with futility.
Heaven is shut up, totally silent. No amount of faith or repentance or obedience
changes anything. She feels like God has forsaken her, and she has absolutely no
idea why.
But there’s still more pain to come. The second half of the test involves her
relationships in the body of Christ. In 5:7 the watchmen strike her, wound her,
and remove her veil. The watchmen are leaders in the body of Christ, and they
wound her with their words because they don’t understand what’s happening to
her. They sincerely want to help her, but they don’t have the discernment to
realize what God is doing in her. They say to her things like, “There must be sin
in your life. You need to repent.” They not only hurt her with their undiscerning
words, but they even remove her veil -- her spiritual covering. This often
represents a temporary or partial removal from ministry.
At this point, everything she lives for has been taken from her. All she ever
wanted was two things: to be drawn into His presence in intimacy, and to run
with Him in ministry service (1:4). Now, both of these things are stripped from
her. She has no sense of His presence, and she is not free to function in ministry
as she was before. Some readers will find themselves really relating to the Bride
at this point because this is a commonly experienced part of God’s divine pattern
in cultivating holy passion within His fervent ones.
Here’s what God is trying to accomplish in her: He removes the sense of His
presence because He wants to determine, “Do you love Me because of the
pleasure you gain in My presence? Are you in this thing for Me or for yourself?
Will you still love Me even if you no longer enjoy Me?”
 And secondly, He removes her from active ministry because He’s wondering,
“Do you love to serve Me because it meets some ego need in yourself and
because it satisfies your need for feelings of significance? Will you be Mine
even if I don’t anoint you? Are you Mine even if I let leaders who you honor
touch you and test you?”
 Chapter Twenty-Two
His Affirmation
Her Response
She’s going to come back with a great response. In essence she’s going to say,
“In the early days I loved You because of what You did for me. But I’ve seen
You, and now I love You because of who You are.”
This is most amazing. God seems to have abandoned her, the body of Christ is
reproaching her, she is wounded and feels naked and exposed, and everything
inside is screaming, “Run and hide! Get out of here!” But this time she doesn’t
leave. She stays in the body of Christ. Contrary to every impulse, she just stands
there, without reviling her accusers, and pleads in 5:8, “I can’t find my Beloved.
He has left me. If you find Him, please tell Him that I am lovesick for Him!”
She comes out of this test awesomely -- with a tenacious love for her Beloved.
She is truly becoming a mature Bride.
The other members of the body of Christ are mystified by her. They’re
thinking, “What’s with you? After all He’s done to you, Honey, we wouldn’t
fault you one bit for being angry with Him. He’s forsaken you and caused you to
be wounded by leaders you respected. But instead of being angry at Him, you’re
more lovesick than ever!” So in 5:9 they begin to wonder, “What is your
Beloved more than another beloved, that you so charge us?” They’re asking,
“What is so wonderful about your Beloved, that you would still love Him like
this after all He’s put you through? We think He’s admirable, but you must see
something in Him that we don’t see. We don’t understand this kind of love. What
do you see in Him?”
The following seven verses (5:10-16) are her reply, and they are an awesome
description of the glory and beauty of the Lord Jesus. Each phrase is full of
symbolic meaning. This is one of the most extravagant eulogies of Jesus in the
entire Scriptures. She feels like the presence of God has been removed from her
life, but the Bride has been so captured by His love that even under great duress
she is absolutely preoccupied with His beauty. Far from being angry or
disenchanted, she is swift to extol His virtues.
The other members of the body are so taken with her description of her
Beloved that they begin to ask in 6:1, “If He is who you say He is, then where is
He, that we can seek Him with you?” Her love has become an effective witness.
Now others are being drawn toward the same fervent, extravagant relationship
with the Beloved that she has.
It’s at this point in the narrative that the Bride has come to the third phase of
her spiritual progression. In 6:3 she says, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is
mine.” The order is reversed. Before, she was saying that He was hers, and she
was His. Now she is recognizing that she is first and foremost His inheritance,
and then of course He is hers as well. Her priorities have been radically
revolutionized through the extreme test of Chapter Five. Above all, she wants to
be totally His. This represents a complete change in her heart motivations.
The Beloved’s Response
When the Lord sees this incredible change in her heart aspirations, He comes
back to her with the most awesome declaration of affirmation you could ever
imagine. He vindicates her before those who thought she was compromising and
imbalanced. He cries out, “O my love, you are as beautiful as Tirzah, lovely as
Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners! Turn your eyes away from me, for
they have overcome me” (6:4-5a).
“Awesome as an army with banners” -- armies in those days would carry
banners back to their capital city after a great victory. He is describing her as a
victorious army. He is saying, “You’ve been victorious over the enemies within.
You've conquered the foes within your own heart that have led you away from
pure love.”
And then He looks at her and says, “Turn your eyes away from me, for they
have overcome Me” (6:5). She couldn’t feel His presence or affirmation for such
a long time, and during that silent period she constantly wondered, “What does
He think of me? Is He mad at me? Have I displeased Him somehow? Has He
cast me aside?” And now He breaks the long silence and says to her, “Let Me
tell you what I was thinking when you couldn’t feel my presence. My heart was
being ravished over you! You didn’t understand what was happening to you, but
you just stood there and loved Me anyways. I can’t tell you how moved I am
over you. Your love is so pure. Oh, turn your eyes from Me, I am overcome with
the devotion of your love for Me!”
This is the Captain of the Lord’s hosts speaking here. This is the King of
kings and the Lord of lords who will one day destroy His enemies with the sheer
splendor of His presence. All of earth’s forces cannot stop Him. All of hell’s
powers cannot defeat Him. Nothing in heaven or earth can conquer Him. He
cannot be overcome by anyone or anything -except this: this Bride who adores
Him through her pain. Only one thing can overcome and conquer the heart of
God the Son, and that is the Bride of Christ who loves Him when everything is
against her.
I can hear Jesus saying to His Father, “Father, You did it. You promised Me a
Bride from the nations who would love Me like You love Me. You said she
would share My passions and heartbeat, and would carry My values. You said
she and I would have many things in common, and here You’ve given Me a
Bride who shares My cross. She’s compatible to Me, she’s so much like Me, and
I love her so much. O holy Father, this is the Bride You promised Me! She is
mature and prepared to be My coequal partner, running with Me in the nations to
bring in the harvest. Thank you, Father!”
Motivated By Grace
The Lord has poured such effusive praise and love upon her that she erupts in
a response (6:11-12) that surprises even her. His affections have so inflamed her
heart that she finds herself reaching out to the needs of the church with zeal like
she’s never experienced before. The imagery of these verses refers to the body of
Christ and to the relative growth of individual believers. Instead of being
exasperated with young, immature believers, she finds herself greatly interested
in their spiritual welfare and continued growth in the Lord. She is seeing the
same potential in the immature believers that the Lord saw in her.
As swift as a chariot, her soul is caught up with zeal for the work of God.
Never before has she been able to love others with such an unconditional love --
with the very love of God. She finds herself able to love angry, envious,
ungrateful people. She now cares deeply for those in the body of Christ who
once mistreated her. Her heart has been enlarged to care for the entire church.
She recognizes that God, by His grace, is channelling a quality of love through
her life that was not inherent to her personality.
Two Responses
As zeal fills her heart for the church, she encounters two responses. In 6:13 a,
sincere believers who appreciate what God has done in her call to her and say,
“Come to us! Come help us.” They see an anointing on her life to impart grace
by the Spirit, and they want to receive from her.
The second half of 6:13 describes the response of cynical or jealous people in
the church who don’t acknowledge what God has done in her. Instead of
affirming her, they are critical of her. They are offended by her zeal, and they
say, “Listen, we don’t think you people should have anything to do with her.
She’s legalistic, narrowminded, imbalanced, and she’s a bad example. Why are
you looking at her anyway?”
 This is “the dance of the two camps.” It’s the tension that has always existed
between sincere believers and insincere believers. There will always be an
insincere church -- those who don’t want to be challenged to holiness and purity,
to greater consecration, and to a deeper intimacy with the Lord Jesus. Saul and
David have danced all through church history. The fervency and consecration of
the Bride will always cause division in the church because there will always be
those who won’t like the conviction her presence brings.
She Is Vindicated
In 7:1-5, the sincere church begins to answer the question posed by the
sarcastic church: “What would you see in the Shulamite?” They praise the
virtues that are ever growing in her by the grace of God. They recognize that
King Jesus is held captive by the glory of her attainments.
In 7:6-9, the Lord Himself vindicates her. He is ravished with the delights that
her love brings Him. As a palm tree, she has grown to great stature. Her breasts
are likened to palm tree clusters, referring to her ability to nurture spiritual babes
in the milk of the word. He is validating her ministry.
 Chapter Twenty-Three
Fully Mature Love
Final Phase
The fourth phase of her progression in holy passion is seen in 7:10: “I am my
beloved’s and his desire is for me.” She is saying, “I am His, and He wants me
for His own. I am His, I am His.” She doesn’t even mention the fact that He is
hers. She knows what Jesus will do for her, but that truth is swallowed up in her
new-found realization that she exists only for Him. She has progressed from the
self-centered focus of 1:13-14 to the God-centered focus of 7:10.
The transition is complete. She has truly died to self and is alive only to God.
Her only concern is that she be His inheritance. At this point her love is fully
mature, and her life is able to be devoted to 100fold fruitfulness in the Master’s
vineyard.
Cry For Intimacy In Service
Now we see the Bride longing to move out in active ministry with the Lord
(7:11-13). Back in Chapter Two, when He had called her to rise from her bed of
intimacy and run with Him in the nations, she had declined. Now, she’s not only
willing to move out in servanthood, she is actually initiating it.
She makes it clear, however, that she wants to go out to the harvest field with
Him. So four times she says, “Let us.” She’s willing to pour her life out for
others as long as she’s in His presence.
In verse 12 she says, “There I will give you my love.” She is saying, “There --
in the place of active ministry -- I will give You my love. I want to give You my
abandoned affections in the midst of running in ministry.” She has learned what
it means to put intimacy and ministry function together.
Complete Dependence
Chapter Eight contains a glorious description of this fully matured Bride.
“Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (8:5).
The change in her is so radical that she is barely recognizable. She is arising
from her wilderness season victoriously, and the most outstanding quality of her
life is that she is leaning upon her Beloved. Perhaps we might have expected the
fully mature believer to be a spiritual giant, a veritable pillar, standing head and
shoulders above others. But no, she can hardly even stand up. She has been so
broken by the wilderness that she depends upon her Beloved for virtually every
step. This is the scriptural image of full bridal maturity: complete dependence.
God is bringing those who are willing, in this hour, to a place of brokenness,
helplessness, weakness, and absolute dependence upon Him.
Covenant Commitment
Now the Lord Jesus comes to her and says, “Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm” (8:6a). The Lord wants to seal her heart by the power
of the Holy Spirit.
A seal preserves. For example, when a jar of jam seals we call it “preserves.”
The seal protects the contents in the jar so that the original strength of flavor is
preserved. In a similar sense the Lord is saying, “Invite Me to preserve your
love. Let Me bottle up your love so that no deteriorating bacteria can get in to
spoil your love. If you set Me as a seal on your heart, I will preserve your love to
the end.”
The seal on her arm represents her commitment to move in the power of the
Holy Spirit rather than the arm of the flesh.
The Fire Of God’s Love
Song of Solomon 8:6 is where God’s love is called a fire: “For love is as
strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a
most vehement flame.” Death is our strongest enemy -- stronger than sin or the
devil -- and is the final enemy that will be destroyed.
There is an intensity of love that is so powerful, so all-consuming, that it is
likened unto death itself.
Nothing in this life escapes the specter of death. It is an all-consuming reality
that conquers all earthly life forms. In the same way, the love of God is
absolutely consuming. Death didn’t take Jesus’ life from Him, love did. God’s
love demands our all. Even as nothing on earth is exempt from death’s claims, so
too those who surrender to the love of God will find everything in their lives
being consumed -- until all that remains is love.
“Its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame.” The last phrase
literally means, “A flame of YAH.” There is no fire like the very fire of God.
There is a love being kindled in the hearts of God’s people today that is
enflamed and energized by God Himself.
There is coming to the church in the last days a mighty revelation of the love
of God. It will be so consuming that God is going to completely capture the
hearts of His people for His Son. Before it’s all over, the church is going to have
a complete preoccupation with the Son of God. Everything we are will be His.
Sometimes when we look at the weaknesses of the church we wonder, “God,
how are You going to make this church into something that is glorious, without
spot or wrinkle?” We have inner wounds, emotional handicaps, addictions,
bondages to sin, and we can’t imagine God perfecting a people like us.
The Lord’s answer is, “The issue is not your weakness -- the issue is My fire!
When I release the fire of my love in the earth, everything in you will change. I
will awaken in you a love beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. You will
see My Son!”
Whenever God wants to change anything on this planet, He just sends some
fire. Sometimes it appears as though God’s kingdom is advancing painfully
slowly at times, but nothing can hinder the acceleration of His purposes when He
turns up the fire.
This fire of God penetrates anything. A flame that’s hot enough will melt steel
like butter. God says, “The fire of My love is hot enough to melt every resistance
in your soul.” God’s love will purify the most addicted, broken person, for this
fire is the very flame of God Himself. There is no obstacle in this Bride’s heart,
no area of demonic stronghold, no corner of hidden rebellion, no scar of
emotional wounding, that is able to withstand this flame. Every area of
resistance in her heart and soul will be consumed. Nothing will survive the
jealous furnace of God’s fiery love -- nothing, that is , except love.
Unquenchable Fire
“Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it” (8:7a). Waters
in the Bible often symbolize problems and difficulties that seek to overwhelm
and drown us. This verse is saying, “There is no opposition great enough to
quench this love for Jesus that burns in the hearts of God’s saints.”
Many saints in the Bible knew overwhelming circumstances, and many saints
today continue to experience the deep floods of adversity and crisis. But even
after Satan levels his greatest attacks, God’s people come through with a deeper,
more fiery love than ever. Revelation 12 depicts Satan (the dragon) in his last
days’ rage, spewing a flood from his mouth in order to try to drown the church,
but he is not successful.
When he spews forth his deepest waters upon God’s people, the grace of God
lifts up a standard against that flood. When the enemy would seek to drown us,
the Lord kindles a fire within us that cannot be extinguished. It is a fiery love for
the Lord Jesus.
In an hour when the saints are facing their greatest testings, the Lord is
reserving a revelation of Himself and His beauty. He is saying to us, “Don’t be
afraid of or intimidated by the dragon’s floods, because when I reveal Myself to
you, the power of the revelation of My love will be stronger than the rage of
Satan.” God has a fire that will lick up and consume the greatest floods of the
dragon -- it’s the very fire of God Himself.
Mountains Of Spices
The last two verses represent the final cry of the Lord Jesus and then of the
Bride. Verse 13 is the Beloved’s last request, and verse 14 is her last request.
In verse 13 Jesus is recognizing that she has become a fully mature partner
with Him, for she is giving herself with abandonment to the harvest in the
garden of God. But in the midst of her running in service He says, “Don’t forget
that I want to hear your voice.” Although there are many others in the body of
Christ that now want to hear from her, He reminds her that He also longs for
intimate communion with her. He is admonishing her that in the midst of all her
labors she must not neglect the place of intimacy with Him. This is the prayer of
Chapter One all over again -- “Draw me, and let us run.” He loves the way she’s
serving, but He reminds her to keep the nurturing of their relationship in constant
focus.
In verse 14 her last words are, “Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle
or a young stag on the mountains of spices.” She is recognizing His sovereignty
over the nations, and she is interceding for the final manifestation of Christ’s
victory. “Make haste” is another way of saying, “Come quickly!” (1 Corinthians
16:22, “maranatha”). In Revelation 22:20 she says it this way, “Even so, come,
Lord Jesus!” She is crying for Christ’s second coming.
The corporate church has been called in the book a “garden of spices” (4:16;
5:1; 6:2), but now for the first time we encounter this phrase, “the mountains of
spices.” This depicts the eternal city which is an abundance of diverse spices.
The fragrant spices from every believer’s life which have been cultivated on
earth, compounded together, will become a veritable mountain of delightful
spices that will be presented to the Lord Jesus on the final day.
Have you ever wondered why the Bride of Christ is so broadly diverse,
comprised of multiplied millions of people, each with a totally unique
personality? One reason is because the heart of Jesus is so incredibly deep and
multifaceted that it will take that many saints to touch the fullness and profound
complexity of Christ’s heart. The fragrance of your life is an aroma that moves
the heart of Christ like no one else can touch Him. As every member of the
Bride offers his or her spices of affections to the Lord Jesus, together we
comprise a mountain of spices to please His heart.
So this tremendous book ends with the Bride praying, “Lord Jesus, come
quickly! Come and take us from this world, and be the stag that triumphs over
every evil of this age. Take us up to glory so that you might rejoice upon this
mountain -- the Lamb’s wife -- with its abundance of spices.”
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
(Author’s note: I have received permission from Mike Bickle to print this
section because I am borrowing heavily from his teaching. I highly commend
Mike’s in-depth teachings on this subject. His complete teaching resources on
The Song Of Solomon are available from Abounding Grace Bookstore, PO Box
229, Grandview, MO 64030-0229, or by calling 1-800-552-2449.)
 Chapter Twenty-Four
God's Jealous Love
“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as
strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a
most vehement flame” (Song of Solomon 8:6).
In the last chapter we dealt with this verse (Song of Solomon 8:6), but we
talked only about the fire of love. We didn't deal with its companion -- the flame
of jealousy. Love has another face to it, and it's called jealousy. The subject of
God's jealousy is fearfully compelling, and deserves special attention (hence this
brief chapter).
Wherever there is true love, there is jealousy. Within the marriage covenant,
for example, the exclusivity of love demands a commensurate jealousy. If I truly
love my wife, I am jealous over her that she not share her love with any other
man.
Applying the symbolism of marriage to our relationship with God, God's love
for us is like the love of a man for his wife, and it burns like a fire. But with His
love comes His jealousy. I would venture to suppose that all my readers yearn to
receive and enjoy the everlasting love of God. What we sometimes forget,
however, is that when we get God's love we also get His jealousy.
Healthy Jealousy
There is a paranoid kind of jealousy that consumes some spouses. Some
husbands are so suspicious of their wives that they are constantly grilling them,
questioning every move they make, and trying to restrict their social life. I am
not talking about that kind of unhealthy jealousy. That's not really jealousy; that's
suspicion and distrust. True love “believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).
There is a wholesome kind of jealousy that demands that true love not be
shared with a third party. True love says, “I love you dearly, Sweetheart, but if
this marriage is going to work, you're going to have to save your body and your
passions exclusively for me.”
In this best sense of the word, God is intensely jealous. He passionately
desires that we not share our love with any other gods, so much so that He even
says, “My name is Jealous” (see Exodus 34:14). Even as a husband has the right
to the exclusive affections of his wife, God has the right to the exclusive
affections of His people.
 God’s Cruel Jealousy
Song of Solomon 8:6 is simultaneously showing us both sides of God’s love.
His love for us is as strong as death, but His jealousy over us is as cruel as the
grave. We want His love, but few are prepared for the intensity of His jealousy.
And yet, you can’t have God’s love without His jealousy. His love is wonderful,
but His jealousy is cruel.
When you pray Song of Solomon 8:6, “Come, Holy Spirit, seal my heart --
cause my love to be true,” then know two things: 1) you’re opening your heart to
a love that is stronger than death, and 2) you’re opening your heart to a jealousy
that is as cruel as the grave. So the Lord asks, “Do you understand that with My
love comes My jealousy?”
God has a holy, righteous jealousy for His people. He longs for the affections
of all men, but He is jealous over the affections of His Bride. When His people
err in their hearts and become infatuated with other passions and delights, the
jealousy of God is aroused. It is a fearful thing to enter into covenant love with
the holy God of the universe, and then have wandering eyes for other attractions.
“Wrath is cruel and anger a torrent, but who is able to stand before jealousy?”
(Proverbs 27:4). This verse indicates that it’s one thing to suffer the wrath of
God as a sinner; it’s quite another thing altogether to suffer the jealousy of God
as a flirting, wayward, lukewarm believer. Thus Paul warns compromising
Christians with these words, “Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we
stronger than He?” (1 Corinthians 10:22). He is asking, “Are you feeling strong
enough to stir up the frightful cruelty of the Lord’s jealousy?”
The Consequences Of Jealousy
The cruelty of God’s jealousy has actually brought some believers to an early
grave. 1 Corinthians 11:30 points to this, saying that some have fallen sleep
(died) because they did not properly discern the body and blood of Christ. 1
Corinthians 5:5 also points to this, indicating that it’s preferable for someone to
be killed by God’s jealousy and at least have their spirit saved than that they
perish in a Christless eternity.
The ultimate cruelty of God’s jealousy is seen in Revelation 3:15-16: “‘I
know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold
or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit
you out of My mouth.'” I used to look at that verse, and in my natural
understanding I would think, “Surely not, Lord! Surely you wouldn't look at
someone who believed in you, and on that final day spew them from Your
presence!” But I hadn't taken into account the fiery indignation of His jealousy.
 Why would Jesus deal so forcefully with someone who believed Him but had
just grown half-hearted in his love and commitment? The answer is seen in the
cross of Christ. When you look at the cross, you see the blazing inferno of His
fiery love. The cross cries out, “This is how hot My love is for you!” And from
His cross He cries, “I want a Bride who loves Me with the same fervency and
passion. I want a Bride who will love Me like I love her.”
As you behold the cross and see His blazing love for you, do you think He'll
be satisfied with a half-hearted, yawn-in-your-face kind of love in return? No!
He'll vomit that kind of sickening love out of His mouth. His love requires --
demands -- a burning purity of love in return that blazes with zeal for nothing
but the face of Jesus Christ.
Love Grown Cold
Jesus warned us that in the last days the love of many believers will become
lukewarm: “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow
cold” (Matthew 24:12). This is one of the great sicknesses of the church today.
The more that lawlessness abounds, the more our love for Jesus tends to grow
cold -- for we are seduced and courted by the abounding lawlessness.
Lawlessness says, “It's your thing, do what you want to do”; “To each his own”;
“Do what's right for you.” Lawlessness erases all absolutes and empowers the
individual to determine right from wrong for himself.
In this libertarian environment, Christianity faces its greatest foe. The fires of
persecution tend to strengthen the resolve of the saints, but a spirit of tolerance
and permissiveness lowers the guard of believers and easily deceives them into
embracing compromise.
So should it not surprise us, in this generation when lawlessness is abounding,
to see the love of many growing cold?
And yet God is too jealous to allow all of His saints to grow cold in their love.
So what does He do? He sends fiery affliction to His people in order t urn their
hearts back t o Himself, and in order to seal their love. The psalmist declared,
“Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word” (Psalm 119:67).
Just as the Israelites' affliction in Egypt caused them to cry out to
God for a deliverer, even so our afflictions will put a deep cry within our
hearts for our Deliverer, our heavenly Bridegroom, to come for us. Without that
affliction, we become accustomed to Egypt and leave our first love.
To the one who allows affliction and crisis to kindle a deeper love the promise
comes: “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will
set him on high, because he has known My name” (Psalm 91:14).
 Chapter Twenty-Five
The Love Hermeneutic
The Scriptures are given to us for a very explicit reason: that we might love
God with our entire being, and that we might love our neighbor as ourselves.
Paul emphatically states that God gave us the Scriptures in order to perfect our
love for Him and for one another: “Now the purpose of the commandment is
love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (1
Timothy 1:5).
In the verses previous (1 Timothy 1:1-4), Paul makes it clear that the Bible
was not written to provoke philosophical debate nor to encourage the pursuit of
theological bunnytrails.
The purpose of the Scriptures is love. The Bible has been given to us in order
to incite and perfect our love. If my time in the Bible does not increase my love
for God, I’ve missed the whole point. Furthermore, if my teaching or preaching
of God’s word does not draw the listeners toward a more fervent love for Chr ist,
then I hav e abused the Scr iptures.
Everything in the Bible must be seen as somehow directing our hearts more
fully into the love of Christ. If there’s a passage you don’t understand, look at it
by asking this question, “How does this passage point me toward the love of
God?” You may be amazed at what you find. The only way you can understand
any passage in the Bible is if you see it as somehow moving you toward the love
of God.
I have discovered that some passages which have puzzled me have come
clearer to me as I’ve looked at them through the lens of love. I call this “the love
hermeneutic.” The love hermeneutic analyzes and interprets a portion of
Scripture through this question, “How can I see the love of God in these verses?”
To understand this love hermeneutic, come with me to some passages that
have opened to me in new ways as I’ve considered how these verses direct my
heart toward the love of God.
“Lest They Should Turn”
I’ve always been somewhat baffled by Jesus’ response to His disciples when
they asked Him why He always spoke to the crowds in parables:
And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the
kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so
that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not
understand; lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them’” (Mark 4:11-
12).
I could never understand why God would purposefully hide His truth from
people, lest they should repent. The Bible says God wants men everywhere to
repent -- so why should God conceal His truth in such a way that men wouldn’t
repent?
To answer this question, let’s employ “the love hermeneutic” and look at
these words through the lens of love. God purposes that men everywhere love
His Son, the Lord Jesus. Jesus presented the kingdom message in such a way
that men had to make a personal decision regarding Him -- whether to love Him
or not.
God’s concern was that men might hear the truth, be persuaded at an
intellectual level to repent, and actually have their sins forgiven but not have a
love for Jesus Christ. The message was veiled so that men would not repent
simply on a rational level alone. God has purposed that repentance come at the
heart/love level, not the cerebral/head level.
No Wedding Garment
Here’s another passage that I haven’t understood:
“So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom
they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. But
when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on
a wedding garment. So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here
without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the
servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer
darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’” (Matthew 22:1013).
My question has been this: how could someone get into the marriage supper
of the Lamb without a wedding garment?
By viewing this passage through the lens of love, I believe we come up with a
satisfactory answer. Jesus is illustrating what it might be like for someone to get
to heaven on the basis of an intellectual decision of repentance rather than a love
for Christ. Without having gained a love for the Lamb, such a person would not
be clothed properly in the garments of love.
When asked, “Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding
garment?”, the man should have said, “All I know is, I love You!” But He
couldn’t say that. He didn’t love the King -- he was speechless. Since he didn’t
love, he was cast out of the kingdom.
 These verses emphasize that there is only one way to become a member of the
Bride of Christ: you’ve got to love the Groom. The big question becomes the
question Jesus directed to Simon Peter:
“Do you love Me?”
A reader might complain to me, “Bob, you’re stepping out into realms of
conjecture. You can’t substantiate that the man without the wedding garment
didn’t love Christ.” You don’t have to accept my method of interpretation here,
but I think I’m on to something. Viewing these verses through the lens of love (1
Timothy 1:5) tips us off to the fact that this man tried to enter the kingdom
through a route other than love.
Men can dissect the gospel rationally. They can weigh its pros and cons. But
God has constructed the kingdom so that the only way men will respond to the
gospel is in love. We are commissioned to show them the cross and then ask,
“Will you love this Jesus?”
Why Was Andrew Excluded?
I have wondered why Jesus chose Peter, James and John as the three to enjoy
some of the most outstanding experiences of Jesus’ ministry. For example, those
three were the only ones to see the most glorious highlight of Jesus’ days on
earth -- I’m referring to Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain. James and John
were brothers, and Jesus included them both in the three. But Peter and Andrew
were also brothers, and yet Jesus included Peter but excluded Andrew.
Why was Andrew excluded? The answer, I believe, is love.
Jesus taught that to those who have, more will be given. Jesus knew which
three loved Him the most, and because they loved they knew the greatest glory.
Their diligence qualified them for this fantastic experience. James’ love for Jesus
is manifest in the fact that he was the first of the Twelve to be martyred (Acts
12:2). There must have been some kind of quiet dynamism and fervency in the
heart of James, unrevealed to us, that incited the Jews to target him with their
antagonism. James burned with a fiery love for Jesus and was killed for it. God
doesn’t show favoritism, but He has His favorites--He reserves the highest
encounters for those who diligently seek Him, and walk in abandoned
obedience.
Jesus said, “To him who has, more will be given.” If you have love, He’ll
impart even more to you. I believe this is seen in Andrew’s life. Andrew could
have had his nose bent out of shape:
“I brought my brother Simon Peter to Jesus in the first place, and now he’s
taken precedence over me!” He could have become bitter and offended, but
instead he kept a guard on his heart and followed hard after Jesus. In the end,
Andrew was rewarded for his diligence. At the end of His ministry, when Jesus
opened up the future to His disciples and revealed to them the things that would
take place in the last days, there were not three present but four! Jesus gave this
revelation to Peter, James, John, and Andrew (Mark 13:3). Why is Andrew now
included? Because he had given himself to love.
Parable Of The Talents
Finally, let’s look at Jesus’ parable of the talents through the lens of love, and
specifically at the one who was given the one talent but buried it. Jesus told it
like this:
“Then he who had received the one talent came and said,
‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and
gathering where you have not scattered seed.
And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground.
Look, there you have what is yours’” (Matthew 25:24-25).
Ultimately Jesus said of him, “Cast the unprofitable servant into the outer
darkness” (Matthew 25:30). This man was excluded from the kingdom because
he did not love. He feared, but he didn’t love. His distorted view of the Master as
being a hard man was evidence of the fact that he didn’t truly know the Master.
This parable illustrates the truth that love is fruitful, but fear buries. Fear
(represented in the one who buried his talent) will cause us to be unfruitful, but
love (represented in the ones who cultivated their talents) will launch us into
greater dimensions of kingdom productivity and blessing.
 Chapter Twenty-Six
Perfected In Love
The Scriptures testify that our God is a consuming fire. Paul wrote that God
dwells in “unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16). Wow! What a gripping
description of God! God dwells in a light that’s so bright that we can’t bear to
get close to it. This light is unapproachable because it’s also a fire. It’s a fiery
inferno that emits an unapproachable light, and it’s God’s home.
God gave us fire so that we could understand Him better. He also gave us
stars so we could better understand what He’s doing in us -- the natural order
instructing us in the spiritual order. The Bible says we will shine like stars
(Daniel 12:3; Matthew 13:43), and to understand that we need to appreciate what
causes a star to burn.
The thing that causes a star to burn, in simple terms, is its gravity. The larger
the mass, the greater the gravity. Stars have such a large mass that their gravity is
enormous. When the particles within a star are compressed together that tightly
(because of gravity), fusion happens. The atoms fuse together in a nuclear
reaction, emitting tremendous amounts of light and heat. Thus, stars are like
huge nuclear reactors.
Jesus said we’ll be like the angels in heaven, and we’ll shine forth like the
sun. The word “glory” in the Bible literally means “heaviness” or “weightiness.”
In other words, God will bestow such weightiness of glory upon us that we will
explode from within -almost like the nuclear reaction that occurs in the core of a
star -and we’ll emit radiant beams of light from the very core of our being as we
face the throne of God.
If we will shine like stars, and the angels shine like stars, how much more the
God of the universe must shine! His glory (weightiness) is so incredible that
there is a fusion-like eruption that eminates forth from His innermost being,
which is an effusion of light and heat. It is the fire of His presence. This light and
fire is unapproachable--at least to natural man.
Everlasting Fire
All of us will dwell with everlasting burning. The only question is, which fire
will it be? The fire of God’s love, or the fire of God’s wrath? Both fires actually
have the same source -- God Himself.
In Matthew 13:41-43, Jesus testified that we are all destined for eternal fire.
Every human will burn for eternity. Some will be thrown into the furnace of fire,
and the others will burn as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Even as God is
a consuming fire, we will become blazing infernos of His love and holiness.
Fire becomes you, dear saint. Have salt in yourself, and have fire in yourself.
Let the zeal of the Lord consume you. Be a flame that is ignited with the fire of
God’s love!
The Purpose Of Fiery Trials
In order for you and I to become aflame with the zeal of God’s love, we must
experience fiery trials. The very purpose of such trials is that we may be
perfected in love.
1 John 4:17, “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. 18
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.”
When we don’t fully understand God’s purposes in fiery trials, our tendency
is to fear. Some of my friends have looked at me and thought, “Oh no, if God did
that to Bob, I wonder what He’s going to do to me.” We fear because we don’t
properly appreciate what God’s fire produces within us. In all honesty, I have
trembled before God’s fire, thinking that if He could wound me like this, then He
could wound me even more. Then as I’ve labelled that fear I’ve come to realize
that I’m not yet perfected in love. Love is perfected when God’s servant no
longer fears the fiery dealings of God, but fully embraces in His heart the great
mercy that is touching his life.
This perfected love is attained through months, even years, of the intense heat
of God’s furnace. The afflicted servant has no control over this process, but waits
for the day when God reveals Himself to him. It is a glorious day when the saint
can say from the midst of the fire with true abandonment, “Burn, fire, burn. Love
of God, consume me. Let Your fire burn in my heart, Lord, until all is consumed
but love.” According to verse 17, when this love is perfected in the heart, there
comes great boldness to appear before the throne of Christ. When you’ve
persevered through God’s fire in this life, you gain great boldness to face the fire
of His judgment that will be applied to all our lives before His throne.
John’s Reward
I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and
patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of
God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day,
and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet (Revelation 1:9-10).
 John was suffering under fiery persecution as an exile on a lonely island. He
had done nothing deserving of imprisonment, but was suffering unjustly because
of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.
John had come to the place where he loved God in the midst of the fire. This
is evidenced by his statement, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” He was
lonely, rejected, treated unjustly, and separated from all ministry expression. He
could have been having a pity party on the Lord’s Day. But instead, how do we
find John? He’s “in the Spirit”! He was loving Jesus in the midst of his pain.
His heart was right in his sufferings, and he was honoring the Lord’s Day.
In that place of right attitude and obedience, God came to him and gave him a
mighty revelation of Christ (contained in the Book of Revelation). Lord, how I
long for You to come to me and give me a revelation of Christ as well! If John
had entertained a lousy attitude, he would have never had the revelation.
No doubt the enemy tried to come to John and say, “Look at you. You loved
the Lord, you leaned on His breast, you were called the disciple whom Jesus
loved -- but look where all this love has gotten you. Here you are, rotting on this
God-forsaken island.
Where has your love for Jesus gotten you, anyway?”
Instead of grumbling and complaining, John got in the Spirit. His
imprisonment proved that his love was perfected. He kept his heart right in the
midst of the fire and was rewarded for it. If you will fasten your love upon the
Lord in the midst of your suffering,
He will reward you too.
A Love That’s Better Than Life
David also understood the importance of keeping his heart right in the midst
of undeserved distress. Look at what David wrote while in the wilderness of
Judah: “Your lovingkindness is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). Saul was chasing
him down, seeking to snuff out his life, but David was soaking in the love of
God. David had two opportunities to kill Saul, but he refused. David was saying,
“If Saul chases me down and kills me, I’d rather die while having this love of
God filling my soul, than to take revenge on my enemy and lose God’s
affections.”
We have a choice: the pursuit of fulfillment in this life or the pursuit of God’s
lovingkindness. His lovingkindness takes us the way of death. “Seek to find your
life, and you’ll lose it. Lose it, and you’ll find it.” When David chose God’s love,
he was choosing the wilderness.
David was saying, “I love being with You and enjoying Your love more than
any other pursuit or pleasure in this life.” You know love has been perfected in
your heart when you would rather be in the arms of Jesus than do anything else.
More than watching a movie, more than being with friends, more than enjoying
a recreational activity, more than going on a cruise -- more than anything -- I’d
rather spend time with You, Lord Jesus.
There is a love that is better than anything and everything else in this life.
May the Lord perfect us in this love!
God’s Deliverance
David didn’t conduct himself perfectly in every single area of his life, but
even in the midst of his mistakes there was a deep cry in his heart for God.
David experienced Psalm 91:14 first-hand, where God testified: “Because he has
set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because
he has known My name.” Because he was chasing after God in his heart and
loving God in the midst of his distresses, the Lord delivered him. Not only did
God deliver him, He also honored him and promoted him.
I’ve decided that I can be wrong on a theological point, but if I’m loving Him
I’m a winner. And the opposite is also true: I can be right theologically, but if
I’m not loving Him I’m a loser. It really is the first and greatest commandment:
Love the Lord your God.
When you are in distressing circumstances, I would encourage you to simply
set your love upon God. Fasten your affections upon Him, and give Him your
love no matter what may come your way. God destines a deliverance for those
who will love Him in the midst of their trials and calamity. It is in this way that
our love for the Lord is perfected. Perfected love sees the purposes of God in
life’s distresses. Not only does love gain a great deliverance, but it also
purchases a maturity that has allowed the fiery circumstances to refine and
perfect Christlike character.
Expressions Of Sincerity That Perfect Love
I’m a Martha (a doer) by nature. God is in the process of making me a lover
first and a doer second, but this is requiring a major overhaul in the essence of
my temperament. In my case, God is using a season of great personal crisis to
bring me to a new level of worship relationship with Him. I am witnessing how
masterfully the Lord allows unsettling circumstances to dislodge us from the
smallness of our present experience, to bring us to greater depths of maturity and
dependence upon Him.
I see three progressive levels of consecration in our personal worship lives:
discipline, delight, and desperation. We all begin at the discipline level,
establishing a worship relationship that is built upon commitment to a
disciplined regimen of time spent with God. Eventually, the Lord brings us to the
place where we long to spend time with Him because He has become our true
delight. But I’m discovering an even higher worship dimension which I call
“desperate dependence.” At this level, the Lord allows crisis to drive us into His
face. His smile becomes our only source of sanity. The Lord Jesus is pursued
with the fervency of a drowning man. Every word from His mouth is like
another gulp of air. Time spent with Him becomes a matter of sheer survival. It
is this level of mature dependence that is so extravagantly depicted in the leaning
bride of Song of Solomon 8:5.
The present impetus of the Spirit seems to be a call to intimacy with Jesus.
Something within us cries out in response, “Lord, how can my relationship with
you be more immediate and alive?” I’ve found the following thoughts helpful as
I’ve pressed into the knowledge of Jesus Christ:
•I usually spend my “quiet time” with the Lord in the morning. But I’ve found
it meaningful to stop a couple times during the course of a day, get on my face
before God, and reaffirm that He is all I live for. This adds a certain sense of
sincerity to my love for the Lord. •When at a social event, quietly slip away from
the crowd for a few minutes, and tell the Lord that you love Him even more than
the warmth of human friendships. The response of the Lord Jesus to this kind of
sincerity is really quite incredible.
•I remind myself that my time with Him is an end in itself, and not a means to
an end. I used to subconsciously view my devotional life with Jesus as a
necessary time of receiving if I wanted to have something to give out. But I
began to see that my soul was being energized more by the reward of fruitful
service than the joy of just knowing Him. There is a certain intimacy that opens
to us when we measure our personal significance by the degree to which we
touch the heart of God in worship, instead of measuring it by ministry
accomplishments.
•Take an occasional retreat of several days’ duration, perhaps once a year. I’d
like to commend three ingredients that have made retreats most significant for
me: fasting, solitude, and an immersion in the Gospels. When you come alive by
the power of the Holy Spirit to the Jesus of the Gospels, your worship life will
be transformed.
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
A Simple Prayer
The Lord gave me a three-fold prayer earlier this year that I have used in my
personal time with Him, and I have found it a great way to commence my
intimacy with Him in the morning. It’s very simple, but I think you’ll enjoy
incorporating this three-fold prayer into your personal devotional life:
Prayer #1: “Lord, I believe and receive Your love for me.”
The Lord says to you, “‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you’” (Jeremiah 31:3).
So respond to Him just now and say, “Lord, I believe that You love me. And
now I receive Your love.” We are not capable of loving Him until we have first
received His love for us.
John wrote, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us”
(1 John 4:16). Many believers have yet to fully apprehend this verse. They still
struggle with the thought that God could love them. “Love me?” they ask. “How
could God love a mess like me?”
Dearly beloved of God, this must be settled once for all in your spirit. You
must realize that God loves you personally and passionately, not because of who
you are but because of who He is. God’s love for you is not based upon who you
are or what you’ve done but upon who He is and what He’s done (in Calvary).
His heart is so great that He reaches out to all mankind with the true heart of a
Father.
Hear the Father’s heart in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have everlasting life.” The word “everlasting” denotes both quantity and quality.
God’s life is everlasting in quantity: God’s life is so full and replete that it will
last for eternity. And God’s life is everlasting in quality: God’s life is so
dynamically vibrant that nothing can kill it, not even eternity itself. God says,
“I’m going to pour a quality of life into you that is unlike any kind of life you’ve
ever known. This life is so incredibly dynamic and abundant that I call it
everlasting life.” It is a life that emanates from the eternal lifesource of God
Himself.
God uses the same adjective to describe His love for us. He says He loves us
“with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) Again, the word “everlasting”
denotes both quantity and quality. God’s love is everlasting in quantity -- that is,
He is so full of love for us that the storehouse of His love will never run dry. For
all eternity, the flame of His love will never flicker and die because it is fed from
an eternal source. But even more significantly, God’s love is everlasting in
quality -- that is, the fire of His love for us is so rich and full and deep that
nothing can snuff it out. One source defines the New Testament word for love --
“agape” -- as “unconquerable benevolence and undefeatable goodwill.” This
love of God is described as “everlasting,” not simply because it will last for ever
and ever, but because of the kind of love it is. It is a love that blazes with such
fiery intensity that it cannot be extinguished by anything -- not even by eternity.
Long after eternity has quenched the fire of our sun, God’s love will continue to
burn with the same passion He displayed for you during His crucifixion.
Stop just now and say it again, “Lord, I receive Your incredible love for me.”
Prayer #2: “Lord, I love You.”
Make this the second statement in your personal prayer time. It’s good to tell
Him you love Him.
Find ways to amplify upon that. Search your heart for words to express your
innermost feelings and thoughts. Learn to become increasingly expressive in
your passions for Him. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you because it takes God to
love God.
Fear and love move along the same channel in our hearts. There is a river that
flows from our hearts to God, and Jesus said in John 7:38 that this river of love
is energized by the Holy Spirit. But Satan wants to hinder the flow by causing us
to fear. Fear is the “backwash” that runs countercurrent to God’s love, and it
seeks to impede, repress, and immobilize our love for God. 1 John 4:18 assures
us, however, that “perfect love casts out fear.”
The Lord wants us to be flooded with such a rushing flow of the Holy Spirit
that fear is literally flushed from our lives on the current of His love.
“Lord, I want to be perfected in this love. I really do love You!”
David prayed, “O God, my heart is steadfast” (Ps. 108:1).
David was saying, “My heart isn’t wavering, O God. I’m not up and down,
hot and cold. Rather, I’m constant in my fervency for You.” God’s love is said to
be steadfast (Lamentations 3), and now David says he has the same kind of love
for God. In one word, this love is called “constancy.”
David is saying, “The fervency of my love for You is constant. I continually
press into Your face with unabated passion. I have the same kind of love for You
that You have for me.”
 Take time every day to tell Him you love Him. And tell Him your fervency
for Him burns as brightly today as it ever has.
Prayer #3: “Lord, how can I love my neighbor today?”
Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have
loved you” (John 15:12).
Henri Nouwen has said, “It’s an incredible mystery of God’s love that the
more you know how deeply you are loved, the more you will see how deeply
your sisters and your brothers in the human family are loved.”
When I fully come to love God perfectly and to share His heart, I will find
myself effortlessly loving those whom He loves.
There is only one thing to live for, and that is the affirmation of Jesus. How
does one receive the King’s nod? One of the greatest secrets of touching His
heart is to touch the people He loves so passionately.
Here’s some simple “kingdom math”:
ministry - love = burnout
ministry + love = fruitfulness
To explain, if my service to others is not motivated by love for Christ, I am
facing inevitable burnout. But if my ministry is the expression of my passionate
love for Jesus, I will participate in genuine kingdom fruitfulness.
“Lord, may my love for others become the natural extension of my love for
You. Teach me to love in such a way that I am carried along upon the impetus of
Your incredible love for the world.”
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Ultimate Pinnacle
I want to finish this book by pointing to the zenith of all revealed truth. I have
referred to the eighth chapter of Romans as “the Himalayas of the Bible”
because no other single chapter in the entire Bible (in my opinion) has more
pinnacles of glorious truth. Romans 8 is a veritable mountain range of some of
the most sublime and inspiring truths in all of Scripture. And it culminates with
the highest peak -- the Mount Everest -- of sacred revelation.
We leave the foothills behind and step out onto the first great peak of the
Himalayas with Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those
who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to
the Spirit.” There is a place in God where we live free from the enemy’s
accusations, and although it is a mighty mountain to climb, it is an attainable
height in the grace of God. This is the first real mountain a Christian must climb.
We could deal extensively with this tremendous mountain of truth, but I want to
move quickly toward the greatest height.
The next great pinnacle in this chapter is Romans 8:11, “But if the Spirit of
Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from
the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells
in you.”
From there we go to the tremendous heights of Romans 8:15, “For you did
not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of
adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” “Abba” is the Aramaic word for
Father that Jesus actually spoke in everyday language, and when we use that
same word we sound just like Jesus and touch the heart of the Father in a
remarkable way.
Dealing With Suffering
The next three pinnacles of Romans 8 all give us mountaintop perspectives on
how to deal with suffering as a Christian.
• “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). (Paul
indicates that the ratio of suffering to eternal glory is disproportionate -- that is,
that a little suffering here turns into great glory there. No suffering, no glory. The
greater the suffering, the greater the glory.)
 • “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know
what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26). (This verse says
that when we’re in pain, the Spirit helps us pray. He helps us travail, in
intercession, unto the birthing of God’s purposes in our lives.)
• “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love
God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
I’ve got to slow down and take some time with Romans 8:28.
As we progress through the pinnacles of Romans 8, verse 28 stands out as one
of the most awesome truths of all Scripture. The assurance of this verse is simply
this: God works painful circumstances together for good -- if we’ll just love Him
in the midst of our distress.
This truth is illustrated beautifully in the life of a certain woman in the Bible
whose husband died seven years into their marriage. (Perhaps you’ll guess to
whom I’m referring.) The Bible gives no indication that she had any children.
After her husband died, nobody else wanted to marry her. I suppose she would
have loved to remarry and have children, but no suitors came along.
It would have been tempting for her to become a bitter and lonely person. Life
was extremely difficult for widows back in those times. I’m sure she got angry at
God, at least in the early days. But instead of holding to her questions and anger
and bitterness, she gave herself to loving God. In the midst of her personal
heartache, she just loved God.
Slowly God’s purposes began to unfold in her life, and she accepted the
calling of a prophetess. The months turned into years, and the Bible says she
“served God with fastings and prayers night and day.” Her prayer most certainly
would have been, “Lord, bring redemption to Israel!” By now you may have
guessed that I’m referring to Anna. (See Luke 2:36-38.)
I believe Anna played a critical role of intercession in preparing the way for
the Messiah to be born in her day. She “prayed Him in” and then was given the
joy of seeing Him herself.
God couldn’t find a widow in Israel in the time of Elijah when He wanted to
visit the nation. Jesus said there were many widows in Israel in the time of
Elijah, but to none of them was Elijah sent.
Elijah had to be sent to the home of a Gentile widow because there was no
widow in Israel that He could trust. In Anna’s day God wanted to visit the nation
again, and just like in the days of Elijah, He looked for a widow in Israel who
would be available for His purposes. This time, however, He didn’t have to go
outside the nation. God needed a widow who would not be distracted with other
valid pursuits, but would be able to devote herself fully to her God-ordained task
of intercession. In His sovereignty, He prepared Anna to be that widow. When
He took her husband from her, I believe God was asking, “Anna, will you be that
widow? Will you be the widow I need in this hour to prepare the way of the
Messiah through intercession?” By just loving God through her pain, Anna
qualified as the candidate for this sacred role.
When Joseph and Mary presented the infant Jesus to the Lord in the temple,
Anna got to see the answer to her prayers. The Scriptures say it this way: “And
coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those
who looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). What great honor she
knew in the end! She got to behold and praise the Hope of Israel! Anna’s life
illustrates the truth of Romans 8:28: the key to turning tragedy into triumph is by
loving God through it all.
Mount Everest
The last and greatest pinnacle of Romans 8 is what I would call the Mount
Everest of the Bible. It represents the highest summit of biblical truth in the
grace of God. I recall flying into Seattle one time, and during our approach we
flew right past Mount Ranier. As I looked out the window, Mount Ranier filled
the horizon and loomed far above our airplane as it jutted up into the sky.
Now, we’re going to take a quick “flight” past Mount Everest. Turn and
behold, and envision this immense mountain before you. This mountain is called
“the love of God.” The love of God is the most magnificent and lofty of all
scriptural truths. It is the Mount Everest of the Bible. As you behold this
mountain of God’s love, you gasp in wonder as you declare, ““Behold what
manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children
of God!” (1 John 3:1). Paul said there are other pinnacles in the grace of God,
such as faith and hope, “but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
I want you to see the love of God as an immense mountain. Paul talks about
the towering proportions of this vast mountain of God’s love in Ephesians 3:18.
Ephesians 3:17, That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you,
being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the
saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- 19 to know the love of
Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of
God.
“That you...may be able to comprehend with all the saints.”
As Paul calls us to delve deeper into God’s love, he indicates that we will
never uncover the love of God in a vacuum by ourselves. We’ll only come to
comprehend His love as we function in the corporate body of Christ. The
fullness of God’s love can be discovered only through the great diversity of the
body of Christ. Our brothers and sisters will help us see and understand God’s
love.
“To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” Based on that
statement, I used to think God’s love was beyond our grasp. But now I’m seeing
this verse to mean that we won’t grasp all of God’s love with our mind; there are
aspects to His love that we must experience. There are aspects to God’s love that
can be grasped only with the heart.
“That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” The key to unlocking
the very fullness of God is to pursue God’s love in all its dimensions.
The Dimensions Of God’s Love
3:18
Ephesians Description
John 3:16
“For God embraces people of every
God so race, every social strata, every
“width”
loved the personality, and every evil
world” extreme.
“that He The cross represents the great
gave His lengths to which God went to
“length” only reach from the heights of His
begotten holiness to touch man in the
Son” depths of his depravity.
“that The interior of this cavernous
whoever mountain is a rich mine of
“depth” believes in infinite wealth which we will
Him should explore and uncover for all
not perish” eternity.
“but
 “height” have This describes the glorious
which everlasting heights to
life” His love has lifted us.
This diagram points to the vast dimensions of this awesome and mighty
mountain called the love of God. Like Mount Everest, it extends in four glorious
dimensions:
Width: The mountain of God’s love is so wide that its width is beyond
measurement. God’s arms stretch out so wide that no one is excluded from the
grasp of His love. No sinner has gone to such extremes as to place himself
outside the sweep of God’s loving arms. God’s love is wide enough to embrace
every single human being across the entire expanse of our globe.
Length: This points to the downward limits of God’s love.
God’s love is a mountain whose base reaches down to the depths of man’s
depravity. At the foot of this mountain -- Mount Calvary -hangs a Man who
humbled Himself to the point of dying on a cross. As we behold the cross, we
see with unfolding clarity the awesome lengths of God’s love that sent Christ
from the glories of heaven to the abyss of man’s sinfulness.
Depth: This refers to the interior dimension of the mountain of God’s love.
There are precious jewels of truth to be mined within this mountain, but they
require diligent digging. Eternity will be a never-ending discovery of ever-
unfolding revelation into the wonder and beauty and glory of God’s
unsearchable love.
Height: Finally, this Mount Everest of God’s love thrusts upward into the sky
before us, an awesome snow-capped pinnacle of incredible wonder. Behold the
glorious heights to which God’s love has lifted us! When His love tells us that
we’ve been made to sit with Christ in heavenly places, we can only gape at such
revelation with wonder and amazement. Our hearts soar upon the winds that
sweep across the jutting summit of God’s expansive love.
Nothing Shall Separate Us
As a reminder we’ve been looking at the pinnacle truths of Romans 8. Now,
as we come to the end of this great chapter, we face the highest pinnacle of all,
the Mount Everest of the Bible:
Romans 8:35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation,
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it
is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep
for the slaughter." 37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through
Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels
nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 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.
In this passage, Paul is exploring the marvelous truth that nothing shall
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ. Patricia Blue has said, “Sin
separates us from His presence, but nothing separates us from His love.”
Unconditional Love
As I meditated in this passage, I began to wonder if my kids could do
anything to cut off my love from their lives. I have three children whom I love
desperately -- Joel, Katie, and Michael -- and I can’t think of anything that
would cause me to stop loving them.
I was able to imagine some possible scenarios in which my children could
potentially make me absolutely furious; I was able to imagine some possible
scenarios in which my children could hurt and wound me terribly; but I could
not imagine a single scenario in which my children could do something that
would cause me to remove my love from them.
So if I, being evil, love my children with that kind of unconditional tenacity,
how much more will God, who says He loves us with an everlasting love, never
remove His love from us! Nothing can ever separate us from His love because
we’re His kids. No matter what you do, or no matter what happens to you, He
still loves you.
Verse 36 goes on to say, “As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day
long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’” In this verse Paul describes
New Testament Christianity. We thought the full expression of what it really
means to be a Christian was, “Power, might, dominion, and strength!” We
thought the fully matured New Testament Christian caught bullets with his teeth
and leapt over tall buildings with a single bound. But what Paul describes in this
verse sounds more like being conformed to Christ’s death. The true image of
Christian maturity is that of a sheep being slaughtered.
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved
us” (Romans 8:37). Notice that Paul says, “in all these things.” In all what
things? In all the things of verse 35: tribulation, distress (pain), persecution,
famine, nakedness (poverty), peril (violence), and sword (war). Paul affirms that
New Testament Christians experience verse 35 and look like verse 36!
More Than Conquerors
 “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors.” When I picture a
conqueror in my mind, I envision someone such as a boxing champion. His arms
are raised; his face is proud; his muscles are rippling; he’s prancing about in a
victory dance; he’s strong; he has an air of invincibility about him; he’s
undefeated -- he’s the champion! But Paul doesn’t paint that picture of the
Christian. Instead, the image he uses is that of a sheep going to slaughter.
Now, a sheep going to slaughter doesn’t look anything like what I thought a
conqueror resembles.
Sometimes I’ve thought, “Lord, I don’t even look like a conqueror, never
mind more than a conqueror!” So I’ve sought to know what Paul meant by that
term, “more than conquerors.”
I hear Paul saying, “We’re more than conquerors because we’ve got Christ’s
love.” We’re weak, broken, and hurting -- but we’ve got Christ’s love. So even
when it looks like we’re losing, the fact that we have this awesome love means
we’re winning. With a love like this, who can lose? If losing my life means I get
to have this love, then to lose is to gain.
Paul is inferring, “The worse I look, the greater my victory.” The world says,
“That’s not conquering.” No, it’s more than conquering. It’s winning in the midst
of weakness.
“In fact,” I can hear Paul continuing, “if you kill me, then I’ve just won the
highest victory!” Martyrdom truly is the noblest of victories.
More than conquerors means this: the feeblest army pulls off the greatest
victory.
Based on Romans 8, here’s my present understanding of how the kingdom
works: God’s saints are harassed, persecuted, and pained in many ways as they
press with great zeal and suffering into the fullness of God’s purposes. God
allows Satan to hinder them, and they suffer many setbacks and much perplexity.
But God is faithful, and He delivers them out of all their troubles when they keep
their heart right before Him. In this way, the forces of hell are conquered by a
weak and dependent church. This church does not conquer by God using His
overriding power to sovereignly blast through every obstacle as soon as it
surfaces. Instead, they persevere through calamity and pain and crisis, but in the
end they have a testimony of the unfailing grace of God, and Satan is defeated
by the most pitiful army you’ve ever seen. God in His grace has upended His
rival with broken, wounded, faithful lovers of Jesus Christ. In the process of the
pain they are perfected into the image of Christ, and Satan has no accusation
against the justice of God, for God has not blown Satan out of the water just by
virtue of His power. Rather, in His wisdom, God has chosen the weak things of
this world to confound the might of Satan. In the end, Satan will be furious at
being defeated by such an ignoble army, and God will be glorified at the
greatness of His grace which was able to effect such a victory through such
limited means.
God’s Response
When you’re living in the pressure, pain, persecution, and neediness of verse
35, you don’t feel like a conqueror. You feel more like hamburger. You’re loving
Him, but you feel terrible. You feel like you’re dying.
But something powerful happens at this point. As God looks down upon this
suffering servant, He sees a saint that is not opening his mouth. He’s not
complaining; he’s not angry at God. He’s submitting meekly to the sufferings of
Christ. And he’s just loving God.
As God beholds this suffering saint He says, “He...he looks like My Son!
That’s exactly how My Son died! This saint reminds Me of My Son, the
resemblance is incredible!” And something of the infinite love of God is
unlocked from within the Father’s heart. This kind of sacrifice touches the Father
and literally melts His heart. When you look like a slaughtered lamb, in the
Father’s eyes you look just like Jesus. You can’t imagine what happens when
you begin to crack open the eternal storehouses of God’s love in this way.
Here’s the saint -- hurting, distressed, bruised -- and he’s getting blitzed with
the Father’s love! Paul is saying, “When this kind of love is being poured on me,
it doesn’t matter how much pain I’m in, I can’t lose!”
Paul learned that first-hand ever before he was a Christian. While still named
Saul, he watched while Stephen was stoned to death. As the stones were
pummeling his body, Stephen wasn’t saying, “Ouch! Oooh! Augh! Oh that
hurts!” Instead, Stephen was saying, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the
Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56). Jesus, who is seated
at the right hand of God in heaven, actually stood up to greet this first martyr of
our faith.
Stephen can hardly even feel the rocks because the heavens have opened
before him, and Jesus is pouring upon him an affection like he’s never known.
His body is being stoned to death, but his soul is being baptized in love. I can
imagine Stephen thinking, “Don’t stop now, guys, go all the way. Do a good job
of it! I see my Beloved, and my heart yearns to be with Him.”
Oh, when the Father pours this love on you! In verse 28 Paul talks about what
happens when we love God (and that’s great).
 But here in verse 37 he talks about something far more glorious -what
happens when God loves us!
The assurance of verses 37-38 is this: When you’re laying your life down as a
sheep for the slaughter, there is nothing that can hinder this love of God from
pouring all over you! Tr ib ul ation and distress are the very portals that open up
the highest dimensions of God’s love!
O the weakness of my ability to show you this mountain of God’s love! Look
away once again at the summit of this glorious mountain, the Mount Everest of
the grace of God:
“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” (Romans 8:38-39).
Hallelujah!