Song of Solomon 4:8-16
At first encounter most wonder what is so special about the Blue Book. This passage of scripture helps reveal the secret. Please read on.
Song of Solomon is about two persons; one royal, the other of common Shulamite ancestry. These two are obsessed with each other. There is room for nothing else in their hearts and minds than each other. Theirs is an all consuming love affair. In this passage it is the man confessing his passion and desire. Yet, he will not force her. He invites her,
Come away with me.
Being alone with his beloved is where his desire will be satisfied. It is her choice to reciprocate. This book may be instructive to courting and married partners but I mentioned Tuesday that I believed the Spirit was using the imagery of physical attraction and union as the closest metaphor available to convey the incomprehensible strength and focus of God’s love.
I am struck again that it was this kind of passionate vulnerable Heart that was leaning, as God incarnate, with expectation and anticipation of union with his beloved, which was greeted when He was making His invitation, with unbelief, scorn, ridicule and ultimately crucifixion; essentially saying to this broken hearted Lover, “Leave us alone permanently.” His response?,
Father forgive them for they don’t understand what they are doing.
Truly, what manner of love is this?!! I wonder what the scribes and Pharisees were teaching about this book when Jesus walked the earth? I wonder; how did they instruct the people to consummate their relationship with God and fulfill their primary command to love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and mind and strength? As I understand it they taught that fidelity through obedience plus the priest’s sacrifices, were what God wanted. They taught that God demanded compliance to the rules He had previously given plus a few hundred more (which they had thrown in as a hedge). I wonder if Jesus ever heard a single one of them say, “I love you Lord.”
It was not that long ago that this sentence would have gotten stuck in my throat. I really could not say it with clear conscience. After all, religion had drilled it into me that my desperately sick heart was always, as the song goes, “inclined to stray”. I knew my secret sins and something about my selfish dual motives. All I could do was say, “God, I pray that someday I will love You in a way that is really worthy of You. We both know what a mess of a person I am”. Then, depending on whatever my current level of spiritual exhaustion was, I would recommit to being obedient and attempt to live in brokenness and contrition. Unless I had been very productive or chaste I would not have enough gaul (based on my efforts) to say, “Lord, I love you”.
I have often thought that if Jeff Foxworthy had a Christian act, he might say, “You might be a Pharisee – if you struggle in saying, “I really love You Father”. Or, “You might be a Pharisee if – you are deeply concerned about other’s performance (but not so much about your own).” From personal experience I can say that these two conditions usually exist in tandem as they did with the original legalists who, like I, made a mockery of God’s amazing grace and His loving invitation “to come” by living in the illusion that my performance was the prerequisite for His approval as well as the essence of my coming.
Note; For this pharisee, I can report that I was not conscious of my religious bent. (This is called deception.) I was doing all this bad math at a deeper level somewhere than conscious thought. I did not arise in the morning and plot how I could earn His approval. It was instinctive and foundational. Just like our other fallen appetites, religion is systemic to our flesh but it is far more deadly than lust or greed because religion will make a case (and a pretty good show) out of its false (self) righteousness. The heart that is tapped into religion produces only the toxic-fruit of works, never the eternal fruit of rest.
Today, I am so grateful that the sentence, “I love You” rolls off my lips easily without consideration of my performance past or recent. There is not enough space here to describe how I got into a religious performance-based relationship to God or how I was freed from it, but it is enough to say that it has been like taking deep gulps of refreshingly clean and life giving air after having been long submerged below water. Note: If this awakens something in you, the story of how the Lord un-entangled (and is untangling) this heart from religion is an ongoing theme at midlewithmystery.com
Father, breakdown every religious stronghold lurking in our hearts. We know that You desire a sensitive and compassionate heart and not just one that foolishly thinks our sacrifices of obedience are all You are after. Where we may have been wounded and grown hardened or become indifferent for whatever reason to Your invitation to “come away” with You, would You heal us and enable us to hear once again Your patient heart that will not rest until You hear from each of us, and all of us, “Oh God, how I love you!” Amen.
The Blue Book’s Secret: First of all; it’s not about the Blue Book. The book is unpretentious. It is not copyrighted. No one profits from it. It was given as a gift to the body of Christ by JLB. It is simple. It introduces us to a community of God intoxicated Shulamites who cannot live without their beloved. Their condensed wisdom is shared in digestible-sized nuggets that each, in their own way, echo the Lover’s invitation to “Come away.” It’s gift is the catalytic impact it has on hearts that respond to God’s invitation. No, its not about the Blue Book and It is for sure not about religion. It all about Him. It always has been and it always will be.