SCRIPTURE: Song of Solomon 7
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights! Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit.” May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. May the wine go straight to my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth. [Song of Solomon 7:6-9]
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [Matthew 5:27-28]
So what is the difference between love and lust?
Both involve sexual stimulation, but one is celebrated and other is condemned.
God created us as sexual beings, and part of that reality is the physical intimacy.
But when physical intimacy is separated from covenant love, the whole experience is depersonalized and dehumanized.
The other person becomes an object of desire, not a person, and is used for personal gratification – used then discarded.
Lust sees the other person as an object, love see them as a person, and is committed to them wholeheartedly, unreservedly.
Lust does not need to know a person’s name, but love is not complete until the whole person is known.
When a person says that they love you, then look elsewhere to satisfy their desires, they are committing adultery, being unfaithful, going against their claim to love.
This is why affairs, and even pornography, are so destructive to marriage; it separates the heart of the one from the other.
It undermines the expression of love, and damages the heart and soul all the parties involved.
The damage of sexual sin (lust) is deep and demeaning, and this explains why there is so much misery, loneliness, betrayal, low self-esteem, etc.
And what makes things worse, is that we are inundating our children with sexual stimulation apart from covenant love, wrecking them even before they are married.
Little do we realize how much damage we cause by what we watch on TV, how we dress, how we speak about sex, and how we portray men and women through media and advertising.
Is it any wonder that so few marriages last, so many affairs occur, so many acts of sexual abuse are committed?
God created sexual love as a precious gift, but we have turned it into a nightmare.
And things are only getting worse…
PRAYER:
Lord, help us to see how serious sexual sin is – in its many forms – and protect us and our children from its horrible consequences.
And the love story continues. He describes His lover with beautiful words – all great attributes. All her gifts He takes delight in, What a beautiful description for a relationship.
The response is better yet. My lover is mine and I am His. Only in this kind of relationship can there be everlasting joy.
The waves are tossing, billows roll,
And storm clouds screen the sunny sky;
I’ll trust the Lover of my soul,
For I am safe when He is nigh.
He’ll carry me up, up, away—
Above the clouds the sun doth shine;
In His dear arms of love I’ll lay,
For I am His and He is mine.
I cannot see the way before;
Through desert wastes or by the sea—
Whatever He may have in store,
I’ll drink the cup He giveth me.
I’ll lowly let Him have His way
To purge all dross and gold refine;
In His dear arms of love I’ll lay,
For I am His and He is mine.
Let nothing ever come to cool
My love for Him who loveth me;
Let nothing blight the bliss but fuel
The flame to burn away debris.
Let nothing turn my feet astray,
Nor strain the ties that intertwine;
In His dear arms of love I’ll lay,
For I am His and He is mine.