Problems with Church

Song of Songs is such a real book. You wouldn't think so at first, but it's so about where we live. On Monday, we talked about verses 1:5-8, about problems with family and where to find Jesus in it all – namely in church, in our God-family.

Today let's talk about problems at church. In Chapter 5, the Beloved (you and me) is desperately looking for her Lover (Jesus). She missed His call by hesitating (verses 5:2-6), so now she's desperate to find Him. Look at verses 5:6b-7: “I looked for Him but did not find Him. I called to Him but He did not answer. The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me, they bruised me; they took away my cloak, those watchmen of the walls!”

Watchmen in the Old Testament represent those waiting for Jesus' return and the Kingdom of God on the earth; in other words, the church. She was abused by those who should have helped her.

Have you ever, in your dark night of the soul, desperately searched for Jesus, trying to recover His presence when you just can't sense Him like you used to? Have you ever been misunderstood by church people who beat you and bruised you (verbally and emotionally) because they didn't understand your desperate search for Jesus outside the status quo?

Verses 5:8 – 6:1 are an argument between the Beloved and those who don't understand her desperation to find Jesus. They challenge her in verse 5:9, “How is your beloved better than others?” But she speaks only about the beauty of Jesus her Lover. She describes Him intimately in verses 5:10-16. And she wins; they finally get it in verse 6:1 – they ask her, “Which way did your lover turn, that we may look for him with you?”

She persists in pursuing intimacy with Jesus, even when misunderstood by her church and thought too radical. But then they want what she's got.

Sometimes God lets us long for Him for a while – it's contagious and rubs off on others, which is a very good thing. By persevering through the pain, not pursuing her own right to be right but clinging to and speaking only about the beauty of Jesus, she changes her church and they are pursuing Him with her. Wow. 

Problems with Family

In Song of Songs 1:6, the Beloved says, “Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun” (NIV). In that culture, having a sun tan was demeaning, because it meant you were working out in the fields all day, which meant you were lower class. The rest of the verse confirms this: “My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected.”

Remember in Song of Songs the Lover is Jesus and the Beloved is you. And me. It's us individually (not as the Church as a whole but this book is about God's love for the individual you).

Although Song of Songs is a romance, it's not drippy. It starts out very real, right where she is, with problems in her family. She's had to take care of other family member's needs and wants to the neglect of her own. Can anybody relate? Jesus can, that's why this is in the book.

What's the answer? What do you do when family pressures force you to neglect your own needs? Her answer is being close to Jesus, intimacy with Him. But she doesn't know how or where to find Him. That's why she asks in verse 7, “Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday.” She's asking Him, “Where can I find you when I need you?”

Look at His answer in verse 8: “If you do not know, most beautiful of women, follow the tracks of the sheep and graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds.” In scripture, who does Jesus mean when He tells a parable about sheep? Believers, His church. Who are the shepherds? Pastors. So she's crying out to God, “How can I find you when I need you?” And His answer is, “Go to church.”

When the pressures of our life and the stresses of our family force us to neglect our own needs, where do we go to get our needs met? While the church does not exist to meet our needs, God will meet us there and He will meet our needs through fellowship with our Heavenly family – His church.

Let the pressures of this life and family stress drive you to church, not away from it. Don't wait until you've got it all together. Go while you're a mess. Let the fellowship of God's people comfort you and speak life into you, and your Lover-King Himself will meet you there.

As We Think and Speak, So We Are

You've heard the saying, “you are what you eat?” Well, we are what we speak and what we think. Proverbs 23:7 says, “as a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” And Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.”

Like we talked about Monday, we have governmental kingdom authority over our lives, our sphere of influence, and the atmosphere around us. And that gives us a choice. We can choose to walk in fear like the rest of the world, and just let life happen to us. We can choose to be purely reactive, tossed about like a ship on the sea by every wind of circumstance that blows our way, caught in a perpetual, pathetic cry of “why me?”

Or.

We can choose to walk in Joy, the Joy that only Jesus gives – which is different from happiness since Joy is independent of our circumstances. In trouble and suffering and uncertainty, we can choose to reject fear and doubt and say, “You know, I have no idea what's going to happen here, but I praise God in this circumstance and I know that He is on the throne and in control. So I will choose to not be afraid, and let my mouth speak only the promises of God. Lord, give me your Joy right now in this moment; I need it.”

In the eternal span of our existence, we have this brief 70-80 year window where we can choose to believe God instead of fear. Many will see the beauty of Jesus on That Day and say, “Oh now I understand who you are; now I'll believe you and not fear during my next trial.” But in Heaven there are no more trials; it's too late. Every trial we endure is a gift from Him, an opportunity to choose to speak His promises or to choose to speak fear. The more painful the trial, the greater the blessing we store up for ourselves when we choose Him. And it blows angel's minds.

Partnering with Jesus

On Monday we talked about having governmental Kingdom authority over our lives, our sphere of influence, and the atmosphere around us. Somebody could ask, “Well, what about the sovereignty of God?”

Good question. God is sovereign, and He can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. And that's exactly the point. Jesus, not me, said, “...on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). So what He wants to do is build His church in partnership with us – His purpose and our faith, remembering that true faith is always walked out in actions (James 2:17).

That's why He made us in His image (Genesis 1:26-27).

Partnership is the whole point behind the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). God can sovereignly save the whole world and establish His Kingdom any time He wants. And any way He wants. And He wants to do it in partnership with us. So much so that He waits for us. Look at the examples of Moses, Joshua, Joseph, Gideon, David, Daniel, Nehemiah, Paul, the apostles, and so many others – all stories of partnership with God.

That's an awesome thought right there – The God of the whole Universe, who can do anything He wants, won't do anything without partnership with us. Yahoo!

We Have Governmental Authority

In Matthew 16:18, after Peter confessed Jesus “...is the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus said “...on this rock I will build my church.” The word He uses for church is the Greek word ecclesia. I'd have guessed it meant the Greek word for the Jewish synagogue, their church of the day. But that's not what it means. It's a very strange word to use for church. Wikipedia has a great article on this word http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesia_(ancient_Athens).

It means the ruling assembly of a Greek city-state. It's a word about government. What?!? I know, right! Didn't Jesus know about the separation of church and state? It may come as a shock to many that some American concepts aren't reflected in the Kingdom of God.

But Jesus isn't talking about governing and being in charge like we humans think of it, He's talking about authority. He goes on to say, “... the gates of Hell will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” See? It's all about authority.

So what's the point? The point is we have governmental authority over our lives and the atmosphere around us. So if we say, “Nobody likes me, I'll never have any friends,” we are making a governmental declaration. As the Bride of Christ, we have His authority to do that. Then a demon says, “Ok, they decreed, I can make that happen.” And something always happens to drive our would-be friends away.

Or how about, “I'm fat and always will be.” A demon will carry out our decree and we will never lose weight no matter what we do. Any time we say, “That's just the way I am, I'll never be free of this ____,” fill in the blank for you, we're decreeing defeat for ourselves.

What we need to do is start believing God and declaring the opposite. If you're a women with self-image problems, start declaring over yourself verses in Song of Songs 4:1-15 where the Lover is talking about His beautiful Beloved (that's Jesus talking about you, BTW.) Denounce any negative decrees from the past and make positive ones, consistent with how God sees us. Then we will start walking in our true identity.

Holiness out of Relationship Not Rules

“Holiness” is just a Christian-ese word that means obeying God. So please don't flip out at my use of it. It doesn't need to be some big hairy deal; it just means living in a way that pleases God.

When we're in love with someone, that's easy. When we're all gaa-gaa over our boyfriend or girlfriend, if they don't like our favorite TV show, it's no problem to skip it. We'd much rather hang out with them. Or we'll quit burping in public, or whatever bothers them. It's easy. They don't force us to – we want to please them because we're in love.

God made the natural world a shadow of the spiritual world as an object lesson for us. So what's true in the natural is true in the spiritual. Often, when crying out to Jesus for that revelation of His presence in a personal way that we talked about on Wednesday, something in our life will come up in our heart that we know needs to go.

Now the Enemy is always quick to dump guilt on God's conviction and lie to us: “See God can't love you with that in your life, look at how you are.” Ignore that bugger and tell him to go pound sand. In the name of Jesus.

No, that prompting in our heart is Jesus pleading with us: “I want to come close to you, but I can't with this in your life. Give it to me.” He knows that thing is not “how you are”; no, it's only what you do. He knows who you really are, you awesome person you, and I mean that in truth not sarcasm. And He wants to remove everything that is holding you back from becoming the real you.

So at that point, we have a choice to make. We can keep our thing and keep Him at arms length and never really be satisfied in life, or we can give Him that thing, renounce it from our life, and let Him come satisfyingly close. If you want to let it go but have trouble letting Him take it out of your life, get help from a Pastor. They are really good at helping people walk through the process of letting Jesus work something out of your life.

The King's Bed Chambers

Song of Songs 1:4 says, “Take me away with you – let us hurry! The king has brought me into his chambers” (NIV). Intimacy. With the King of Kings.

What's your first response to that thought? Is it “Wow, that's amazingly awesome”? Or is it, “Whoa, slow down, that makes me uncomfortable, this is getting way too personal”?

Like we talked about Monday, Song of Songs starts out in verse 2 talking about “the kisses of His mouth” being “more delightful than wine.” What comes from Jesus' mouth? His word – the Bible. It is “more delightful than wine” – than the pleasures of this world – because His word is supposed to usher us into this close, intimate, bed-chamber relationship with Jesus.

There must come a point in every Christian's journey where we stop coming to Him primarily because we need stuff, and instead come to Him for just Him. We've seen and are drawn to His beauty, and we're longing for more intimacy with Him.

But you can't get there by trying harder – that's just religion and He's really not into it. You get there by crying out to Him day and night with everything that you are for an intimate revelation of Him. For Him to reveal Himself to you in a deeper and more personal way. For as long as it takes until He does. And He always will if we don't give up. Like Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart.”  

The Kisses of His Mouth

The Song of Songs starts out with “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth – for your love is more delightful than wine” (Song of Songs 1:2, NIV). Song of Songs is an allegory of our relationship with Jesus. Not just Jesus and The Church, but Jesus and an individual. Me. You. It's really personal.

The book is written as a play, by Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. The script goes back and forth in a dialog between male and female parts, identified in the Hebrew mostly by the gender of the pronouns used. The NIV translation labels the male parts as Lover and the female as Beloved; most Bibles do something similar.

Isn't it interesting that an allegory about our individual relationship with Jesus starts out talking about the kisses of His mouth? That represents the Word. The Bible. His word that came out of His mouth. His love letter to us.

Relationship with Him starts with believing His word. It starts with accepting His word as a kiss from His mouth as “more delightful than wine” – better than the pleasures of this world.

If you think the Bible is boring, you've probably never really read it. There's drama, political intrigue, history, songs, poetry, crazy visions that can only be categorized in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, practical books with just straight wisdom for living life – everything's in there. Ask God to reveal it to you, to help you understand it. That's a prayer He will always answer “yes.”

Let's not take it for granted. Let's read it with fresh eyes, as the love-kiss from Heaven that it is.

Controlling Your Emotions

The second strategy we'll talk about this week for living a godly life is controlling your emotions. “But it's not my fault I just don't love my spouse anymore.” Yes, it is totally your fault. It's something you can control. “But I just don't like that person at work – I can't help how I feel!” Yes, actually you can.

But not by trying harder. You can't control your emotions by gritting your teeth or being robotic or by militaristically obeying orders to love. Love doesn't happen that way. Trying harder just gets into religion. God's not into religion, so we shouldn't be either. (As an aside, the Enemy's totally into religion – he's started lots of them. God's totally into relationship – He's started lots of them.)

The point is you can't control your emotions by trying to control your emotions. But you can totally control your emotions. “Dude, starting making sense.!” Okay, here we go. You control your emotions by taking advantage of a Kingdom principal that God wove into the fabric of the universe.

God wants us living out of our will, not out of our mind or our emotions. You control your emotions by choosing to serve that person. Find something you can do to serve your spouse or your co-worker or whoever you have negative emotions for. The Holy Spirit's presence and favor is like water – it flows to the lowest point. So get low. Philippians 2:3 says “... in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Be determined to serve them. Not just once, but as a lifestyle. What can you do that would bless them? The 100% guaranteed, God-ordained, by-product for you will be positive emotions toward that person.

Then, like Isaiah 58:8 says, “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.” That totally works for me. I'll take an extra helping of righteousness, please, with the glory of the Lord on the side. But it starts by getting low. It starts by serving. Try it and tell me in the comments how it works.

Focus on What God Is Doing Not the Enemy

That sounds like a no-brainer. We'd all agree with that. But we often don't get to the practical point of walking it out, because we don't understand what that looks like.

God is always working something positive in our lives, and the Enemy is always trying to work something negative. Again a no-brainer that we'd all intellectually agree with. Here's what it looks like in practice.

We decide with our will to focus (ie, put all our energy and attention) on the positive, not the negative. Say our problem is not being able to stop sleeping with our boy/girl friend. That's the negative. We stop beating ourselves up for our sin. What's the opposite? Purity. That's the positive God wants to work in our lives. So we cry out day and night to Him to work purity into our lives. We focus on the positive.

That means letting the negative go when it goes. In the example above, God will answer those prayers, and bring circumstances that take that negative boy/girl friend who doesn't want purity out of our lives. Let them go. Don't hold on to the negative. Now you have a season without distraction where God can work purity into your life. Yay, go God!

Think of the worst problem or character flaw in your life. Then think of the opposite. That's what God wants to do in your life. Agree with Him about it and it'll go much faster.

“I Just Need to Try Harder”

“... to live right.” “... to stop this sin I just can't stop.” “... to be a better Christian.” “... to love my spouse more.” Fill in the blank for you. These things that vex us aren't okay. They are idols in our life and we do need to lay them down and be free of them. But just trying harder won't work.

“I just need to try harder.” That's the religious answer. The condemning voice inside says we just need to straighten up and fly right. As if we could. As if we could live a righteous life by trying harder and being more religious. What a lie. Jesus is not religious; he's relational.

You can only get evil things out of your life by (1) agreeing with God that they are evil things, and (2) laying them at the foot of the Cross. Not at the foot of Trying Harder.

Yes, we do need to try as hard as we can to live a godly life. Knowing Jesus is not a license to sin. But we live a godly life by pressing into Him as hard as we can. By focusing our attention and energy on Him. By spending more time with Him. By Knowing Him and getting closer to Him, the by-product for us is freedom from the chains that bind us.

What's that look like? Isn't that just trying harder to read our Bible or spend time with Him or do something religious? No, it's different. We'll talk about two key, practical strategies for focusing our lives on Jesus and living godly lives this week.

I Like Winning Banners

In Song of Solomon 6:4, the Lover (Jesus) calls his Beloved (you and me), “majestic as troops with banners.” Armies carry banners to celebrate battles they've won, and to show off to any potential future adversaries how BA they are.

In the next verse, Song of Songs 6:5, the Lover (Jesus) says to his Beloved (you and me), “Turn your eyes from me, they overwhelm me.” The Lover is saying to his Beloved, “Don't look at me like that – the love in your eyes for me is overwhelming me with emotion and I might lose it,” while he smiles and looks away, so she can't see he's blushing. Jesus is blushing!

When you don't feel like you're winning at all, when life has the better of you, when you're sure you're going down for the last time, when you can't feel His presence, but you still choose His ways and choose to trust Him instead of give place to fear and anxiety – in those times when you felt Nothing but chose Him anyway, He felt Everything! You just won a majestic banner, and He blushed.

I like winning banners. Out of His overwhelmingly great love for us, He puts us in those situations where we feel overwhelmed and don't feel Him at all. So we can win a banner. So we can choose to trust Him instead of dwelling in fear, out of our love for Him, and it makes Him blush!

On that Day when we finally see him face-to-face, the walls of our mansion in Heaven will be decorated with the banners we won in this life in those moments when we trusted Him instead of ourselves or something else. Wow.

Getting Past the Savior to the Lover

We really gotta get past the Savior thing. Yes, Jesus is totally our Savior, and we love Him for that – while we were yet sinners and hated Him, He demonstrated His love for us in this – Christ died for us (my paraphrase of Romans 5:8).

But for some people, that's it. That sums up their whole relationship with him. God became human and he did this really spectacular thing for them a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, and it's great because now they have this great life insurance policy -- “salvation” and they get to go to heaven, sometime, in the sweet by-and-by. But it all seems very distant and impersonal and far away and, well, just not very relative to their day-to-day life in survival mode.

Jesus didn't die for you so He could be your insurance salesman. He died for you to be your lover. Salvation is just the tip of the iceberg! There is So. Much. More! We can know Him so deep, and with such ferocious intimacy.

Think about this today. Jesus didn't die for you to give you salvation, although that's a byproduct. Salvation was never the point; it was a necessary prerequisite. Jesus died to give you Himself.