Passionate love for Jesus

So, over the past weeks I've been going through Mike Bickle's series on the Song of Songs. (you can get mp3s, videos, and notes at http://mikebickle.org/resources/series/song-of-songs)

Now, obviously the book is a natural love song, but this teaching is focusing on the spiritual interpretation. I can honestly say it's changed my relationship with God, and many times now when I worship words from the Song come into my mind and I whisper, speak or sing them out.

Honestly, in the past I've often ignored this book of the Bible; it does seem pretty random at times. But as I've begun to really look at it, it's really changed the way I view God. It's made me see that a passionate, fiery love for Jesus is something we can all have and must all set our lives on. God is raising up a Bride in these days that is passsionately in love with Jesus and will endure anything for Him.

Now, a lot of the church, myself included, is not walking in this passionate love for Jesus. Sure, we love Him and serve Him, but we've settled for what seems 'normal'. We desperately need to encounter God's heart, His jealous passion for us. We need pursue Him violently and tenaciously.

So, here's the notes I made from the teaching session based on Song 1:2 (a lot of this is direct quotes from the teaching). It's pretty epic, but definitely worth reading.

"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth - for Your love is better than wine." (Song 1:2)

- We cry out to the Father, "Let Him (Jesus) kiss me with the kisses of His mouth (Word)." We are asking for the grace to love Jesus with all our heart. (Matt 22:37-38) The first commandment must be the first priority in our lives.

- The theme of the Song is the Bride's cry for the kiss of God's Word to touch the deepest place in her heart - the Word as it reveals the King's emotions for His bride and awakens our heart in the 3-fold love of God (love from God, then love for God which overflows to others).

- Why does she want the kisses of the Word? She says directly to Jesus "For (because) Your love is better than wine." Wine here speaks of the drink of earthly celebration, the intoxicating things of this world, both good and bad.

- As woderful as God's blessings are, they are not to be the primary focus of our hearts. The Bride sees that superior pleasures come from growing in revelation of God's heart (affection).

- God has placed longings in us to woo us into His presence (see Mike's book The Seven Longings of the Human Heart, which you can download free in pdf form at http://mikebickle.org/books
There is a 'God-shaped vacuum' in us that can only be filled by God.

- The greatest 'pleasures' are spiritual ones, experienced by encountering Jesus as the Bridegroom God (Phil 3:8). God frees us from the dominion of the inferior pleasures of sin by allowing us to experience superior spiritual pleasures that are more powerful.

- The reward of a lover is the power to love. A lover does twice as much as a worker and does not care for any reward but the power to love.

- Motivation for Obedience
- "Affection-based obedience" flows from experiencing God's love. It results in the deepest and most consistent obedience - a lovesick person will embrace and endure anything for the sake of love
- "Obedience by faith", or without feeling God's presence, is still required in God's Word. When we don't feel like it we must obey.
- "Fear or shame-based obedience" is Biblical too, but it is not enough to motivate us to consistently resist the pleasures of sin for years.

- Experiencing God is more effective in motivating us to resist sin than the fear of consequences. The fear of sin's consequences does not overpower the tendency in our hearts to sin, but will instead cause us to sin secret, in more creative ways.

- We sin when our heart is hungry and unsatisfied with God. Our struggle for holiness must be set in context to our pursuit to live satisfied in God.

- God loves us in the same way that God loves God.(John 15:9, 17:23, 26) This gives every believer the right to view themselves as 'God's favourite.' This tells of our worth and value.

- The way that the Father loves Jesus is the only accurate measure in which we can understand how Jesus feels about us. God's love is a powerful reality that includes deep desire, enjoyment, pleasure and longing. The Gospel is a call to live in that vast ocean of divine love. (Eph 3:17-19)

- The disciples were sincere but yet still spiritually immature. Jesus' affirmations of love were spoken to weak believers He knew would betray Him that night. Jesus knew that the only thing that would stabilise them was knowing how God felt about them.

- We must make it a priority to meditate on the truths about God's emotions for us. We are transformed most as we understand how God feels about us, especially in our weakness. This revelation causes us to run to Him instead of from Him.

- When God wants to empower us to love Him, He reveals Himself as One Who loves us. We love, enjoy and pursue Him because we understand that He first loved, enjoyed and pursued us. (1 Jn 4:19)