08/07/2019
How great is your love for Jesus Christ? What would it take to separate you from Him, and His love for you. Poets have long sought to capture the intensity of their love, but try as they might it always falls short of describing that pool of emotion bubbling up within them. Our love, and faith in Jesus is similar in that we who love Him can’t satisfactorily express the fullness of our love either. So, how do we praise Him?
“Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.”
The Song of Solomon 1:4 ESV
Solomon was one of the wisest men of his time, and yet try as he might he too fell short of conveying the full measure of love. In this verse he writes of His wife, and yet we find so much similarity in that expression of love, and the love we have for Jesus... rightly do we love Him. Listen to the words of the Saint Paul as he attempts to describe love; his divine love...
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV
These words are beautiful indeed, and have been quoted not only for spiritual edification, but in wedding ceremonies, and even in love letters between men and women, as they try to describe the love they feel for one another.
I find it interesting that as poets make their attempts at describing the fullness of love they so often include the language of faith, and of faithful love, in the poems they write. Listen to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous poem, and as you read her words, pay close attention to how often she calls upon her faith in an attempt to help...
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning - 1806-1861
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
If read purely in the context of faith, this could easily be an expression of her love for Jesus. It could easily be our own confession of love and praise for Him, and yet, even in its beauty she falls short, and the baton is dropped where it is left to be picked up by future poets. We too fall short, and our souls remain unsatisfied in our own expression. God alone commands the words that describe love satisfactorily because He is Word, and unlike with us, His is the outpouring of complete and perfect thought, and love. So it is appropriate that scripture should link God’s Word with His Son Jesus...
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”
John 1:1-2 ESV
As we make our own attempts, and fail at completely and perfectly describing our love for Jesus, it only stands to reason that we should turn to Him for help, just as we do in prayer. We are told not to lean on our own understanding...
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5 ESV
And, in this way we should call upon the Holy Spirit to Bridge this gap of expression, and bring peace to our soul’s longing to not only pray when we have no words, but to sing of our love for Jesus, and to praise Him.
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Romans 8:26-27 ESV
The Holy Spirit wells up within us when we give Him rein, and gives voice to our own spirit; not only in the depth of emotion with which we pray, but in expressing our love in its fullness... in angelic, and divine language, and in groaning, and utterances of deepest love, and satisfaction.
So as we tell Jesus we love Him, and that we will never be separated from Him, we find our own words wanting. In these moments of praise and in revealing to Christ the depth of our love for Him, it is appropriate to lean on the intercession of the Holy Spirit for the words we lack. Just as lovers coo, and make sweet sounds when emotion bubbles intensely to the surface in a kiss, so the Spirit translates our love for Jesus. Are you able to let Him speak for you? Do you bridle Him in those moments? Do you struggle, and continue in your attempt at using your own words, or those of Solomon, Browning, or other failed poets, to express what only the Holy Spirit can say? Well, try leaning not on your own understanding, and give way to the Holy Spirit for the intimate utterances of your spirit; your soul.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for your love for us, and that selfsame love that flows from your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for allowing us to feel your overwhelming love, and thank you for your Holy Spirit that allows us to express it, even though our own language fails us in doing so. Help us Holy Father to overcome our timidity as we lean on the Spirit, and remove our insecurity as we allow Him to speak for us in those private, and quiet moments of our relationship, and prayer. Hear our stumbling words of love, and make them perfect as they are expressed by our hearts. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who loves us deeper than we can fathom. Great is your love that brought Jesus to the cross to cleanse us of our sin. Higher too is your love that raised Him from the dead, and defeated death for us. Praised be your name Father, and Glorious are you whose Mercy and Grace flow over us, pouring forth out of your boundless love, and Son, Jesus Christ.
So, in the only way I know how, and in the simplest, yet most direct manner, hear me Father when my heart employs my lips to say... I love you.
Rich Forbes