Divine Invitation

I am SO grateful that you have chosen to take this journey with me, and I sincerely hope that it will be a great adventure!



Day one...



“Seek Me and live!” God lovingly implores us to come, seek, look, know, and experience His wonder, His person, His power, His love. To know the Lord is the deepest desire of my heart. All throughout my walk with Him, I have been seeking what comes from Him. I have thought that knowing His very essence was illusive and too great an undertaking. And I have remained unfulfilled in my understanding of Him, content in short seasons where help and blessings are apparent, only to find discouragement and despair in the desert times because of my superficial knowledge of His character. It is the goal and also the life work of this, His humbled servant, to seek deeper into the treasure house of greatness of God Himself; not just what He offers, or even promises, but how He thinks, feels, behaves, who He truly is. With wonder and trepidation I attempt this search, knowing I am welcomed, yet feeling like such an unholy trespasser into the realms of true Perfection. Come with me. Let us boldly look together into the heart and face of our God and Savior, who dwelled in the heavens, walked among men, was buried in the earth, ascended into glory, and now inhabits our hearts.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” The words of this beautiful song, sung throughout the churches, hold such encouragement and truth. What a beautiful concept this is to just turn to Jesus, but how can one look full into His face? Do we even know where to look in order to see it? How can we get close enough to see His intricate expressions and discern their meaning? Has the thought of “just look to Jesus” ever seemed ambiguous and cryptic to you, too? Could you describe the attributes of the Beloved, or just His actions and deeds?

No man can fully know God, but oh what a blessed thing it is to see into His heart, to know the Love of our souls more deeply! He is all around, yet invisible. He inhabits the whole earth and yet resides in our hearts. His glory is unparalleled, but He is the definition of humility. He is our example and our source of life. He is the light of the world. He is God. And He invites us to draw near and get to know Him. Come on a journey, a quest, to learn the heart, the person of our God more fully.

Jesus says, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father; for the Father and I are one.” Seeing Jesus with spiritual eyes through the inspired pages of scripture is an amazing privilege and possibility. And in seeing and knowing Jesus, we are seeing and knowing God! “Lo, I come in the volume of the books, it is written of Me” Jesus says. Life is not long enough to exhaustively examine all the scripture God made available to us to teach us of Himself. But, as a start, here we will attempt a deeper study of seven verses in the Book of the Song of Solomon. Here in this historic book, we have an amazing love story between a man, King Solomon, and his bride, the Shulamite woman. It is as poetic and intimate a love story as ever there was. And it is also a spiritual depiction of the Beloved of our souls, Jesus Christ, and His bride, us.

In the fifth chapter, the Shulamite has lost her Beloved and is frantically searching for Him. She beseeches the women of Jerusalem to assist her in her desperate quest. They respond to the Shulamite’s plea for help by asking what could be the most important question of all time. They inquire, “What is your Beloved more that any other Beloved that we might seek for Him.” What is so special about this Jesus, many ask. What makes Him superior to all others? Why should I seek to find Him?

This is the journey we now begin. This is the quest; to answer this question within the confines of this scripture, to open our eyes to know more fully who the Beloved is. There are so many distractions and deterrents from just opening the Word and looking for Christ in it; to learn of His person and nature, not just what He can do for us. Let us run to see Him and to know Him more! For therein lies eternal, abundant life:

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Jn 17:3)




Questions:

1. Do you have an honest, fervent desire to know God more? If not, ask Him for one! Make Colossians 1:9-12 your prayer for yourself and your loved ones.



2. Why is it important to know God? (See Prov 9:10-11 and Jn 17:3)



3. How can we know and experience God?