UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DAY 23 MORNING Read Revelation 21:1-8

SONG OF SONGS: JESUS IS THE LOVER OF OUR SOULS[1]

The Song of Songs’, has been read over the centuries as a song extolling the virtues of marriage, but also as a love song that speaks of the love of the Lord Jesus for his bride. On occasions the bridegroom refers to his bride as a ‘spring’ and as a ‘well’. ‘The Song of Songs’ is poetry that takes the form of a dialogue between a husband (the king) and his wife (the Shulamite). There are three sections: the courtship, the wedding and the maturing. If the Bridegroom represents Jesus and the Bride is his church, then the Bride’s spiritual journey is to be drawn near (‘Draw me’) to Jesus in intimacy and then to run in deep partnership with Him, (‘And we will run after you’) in ministry. The bride says ‘I am dark [in heart], but lovely [to God]…my own vineyard [heart] I have not kept.’ ( 1:5-6) The paradox of our faith is that we are dark in our heart, yet we are lovely to God. Jesus is then pictured as effortlessly skipping and leaping over the mountains, or as working to fulfil the Great Commission. The mountains speak of obstacles (human, demonic). She is accustomed to eating apples at His table, under the shade tree she refuses Him, telling Him to turn and go to the mountain without her. She experiences the discipline of God as He hides His face from her. Jesus reveals Himself as one who is safe to obey 100 percent. His heart is ravished with desire for her. In a two-fold test of maturity she experiences her first test as God withdraws His presence, and her second test as her ministry is rejected. Jesus is “conquered” only by His Bride’s extravagant love. Our eyes of devotion deeply touch the King’s heart.  She walks out mature bridal partnership with Jesus, which is expressed in obedience, in her intercession for more power in her boldness in public ministry in their full union.[2] The Song of Songs at one level is a love song that speaks of the beauty of marriage, but it is also a love song of the Lord Jesus for his bride, and has been an inspiration through the centuries for monks and missionaries, most notably Bernard of Clairvaux[3] and Hudson Taylor[4].

MISSIONARY MONKS: SIGFRID OF SWEDEN circa 930 – 1002[5]

Sigfrid was a missionary Bishop who continued the work of Anskar in the Christianization of Sweden. King Ethelred sent Sigfrid to King Olaf of Norway to help with spread of the Gospel in Scandanavia.[6] King Olaf had become a Christian while in exile, in England. Sigfrid was a priest in York who left in 950 and arrived at Vaxjo in Sweden. He began by building across and a wooden church and started preaching to the people. Large numbers came to Christ very quickly and he ordained a bishop of East and a bishop of West Gothland. Sigfrid was responsible for the ‘see’ of Vaxjo. Unaman, Sunaman and Wiaman, his three nephews, who assisted him in his apostolic labours.  He left the administration of Vaxjo to his three nephews and continued further north. He started more churches and consecrated two more bishops. While he was away from Vaxjo, the three nephews were all murdered. Although the King wanted to put the murderers to death, Sigfrid persuaded him to spare their lives. He was buried at his Cathedral in Vaxjo

CLICK ON BOLD and you will be directed to Joshua Project website with more information for prayer.

PRAY for “the Tatar, Crimean  in  Ukraine, the twenty fourth largest unreached people in Europe, whose language is  Crimean Tatar  and whose primary religion is Islam There are 253,000, 0.12% Christian and  0.1% evangelical. ”[7]  TheChristian heritage of Ukraine is like a well that has been blocked. We call out to you Lord that the spring would bubble up once again, in Ukraine. We pray for the Tatar. In 1944, Stalin’s Soviet regime deported the entire Crimean Tatar population to Central Asia and Siberia, and it wasn’t until 1989 that repatriation to their homeland began. Lord have mercy on the Tatar in Crimea who are now under Russian government again.  Lord have mercy!

DAY 23 EVENING Psalm 111-115, Re-read Psalm 112

PSALM 112: BLESSED ARE THOSE THAT FEAR THE LORD, THAT OBEY CHRIST’S COMMANDS.

Psalm 112:1,2 “Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands.” What was a central characteristic of Jesus? Isaiah 11:3 prophetically describes the Messiah who was to come. “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.” The whole of this Psalm 112 is a description of  “The fear of the Lord.” When N.T Wright says we need to inhabit the psalms and not just read them, I think one of the reasons we should, ‘live in the psalms,’ is that we will grow in, and find delight in, “The fear of the Lord”. 51 times “The fear of the Lord” is referenced in the Psalms. If you really want to become like Christ, the message here is to grow in “The fear of the Lord”, as it is the beginning of wisdom. Thomas A Kempis said, “man has a natural desire for knowledge but what is the good of knowledge without the fear of God.”[8]Growing in Christian character, in the fear of the Lord is a strong theme of the Christian classic, “The Imitation of Christ” which is perhaps after the bible the most widely read book in the world.

Joy Dawson says, [9]  ‘If there was a pile of cow manure on the carpet in your church in the front of your pulpit, what would you do? You’d want to get it out of the church quickly! Why? Because it stinks! If I said that I had a secret sin, a love for cow manure, and I needed prayer otherwise I might be tempted to get in it, you might think I was crazy! ‘But this is exactly what it is like when people ask for prayer regarding their sins. They don’t hate their sin for what it is. They need the fear of the Lord, which is the hatred of evil, Proverbs 8:13. When we see sin the way God sees sin, we see it as a sugar-coated cow pat!’ Friendship with the Lord is for those that fear him. Intimacy with God without obedience is like prostitution. Jesus clearly said, ‘If you love me you will obey what I command.’(John 14:15) But what is obedience? It is doing what we are told, when we are told and with the right attitude. When we know what it is right to do and we don’t do it, it is sin.[10] Partial obedience is NOT obedience. How do we stay close to the Lord, in a consumer society that is so indulgent, hedonistic and narcissistic? How do we stay on the narrow path and keep close to the Lord? We keep close to Him, to the degree that we fear God and obey him and repent of our sin. The level of our repentance of sin will depend upon the extent to which we see sin as God sees it and hate it as He hates it.[11]

The deeper the understanding that we have of God’s character, His justice, knowledge, wisdom, faithfulness and love, the easier it will be for us to obey Him.[12]  We also have the fear of God upon us, to the degree we are free from idolatry. An idol is that thing we go to for comfort before we go to God. In a consumer society it is so easy for us to make our own will into an idol, as we satisfy our own desires. Anything that takes priority in our lives over the Lord Jesus Christ in our thinking, in our time, in our affection, in our loyalty, and in our obedience, can become an idol. Even our own ministry responsibilities can become a focus of our attention, and the centre of our priorities, along with our possessions, our money, our food, our sexual gratification.[13]A strong call to obedience in ‘the fear of the Lord’ is the theme of the Prologue to Benedict’s Rule. He references Psalm 34 in the Prologue [14] ‘Come to me, my children and listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.’ (Psalm 34:11) Humility, the central monastic virtue, begins in “the fear of the Lord.” which simply means acknowledging the divine omnipresence and acting accordingly.’[15]The fear of the Lord was stressed by Benedict, because he recognised that without the fear of the Lord individuals would become proud because of their own works, and begin to love their own will rather than God’s.[16]

PRAYER Lord help me to “delight in the fear of God” and to obey your commands.

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[1] Cunningham, L. The book that transforms nations, YWAM Publishing 2007,218

[2] https://cdn.subsplash.com/documents/JWB53X/_source/7e926417-1fb9-467b-8ee2-44df655485b0/document.pdf

[3] Clairvaux, B Commentary on the Song of Songs, Jazzybee Verlag, 2016.

[4] Taylor, H. Union and Communion, Cosimo Classics, 2007.

[5] Summary of content https://www.ecatholic2000.com/butler/vol2/february70.shtml

[6] https://www.stsigfridstrust.org/about

[7] Data provided by Joshua Project https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/11434/UP

[8] A Kempis, T The Imitation of Christ, Harper Collins, 197438.

[9] Dawson, J. Intimate Friendship with God. Chosen Books, 2008, 54.

[10] Dawson, J. Intimate Friendship with God. Chosen Books, 2008, 57.

[11] Dawson, J. Intimate Friendship with God. Chosen Books, 2008, 23.

[12] Dawson, J. Intimate Friendship with God. Chosen Books, 2008, 116.

[13] Dawson, J. Intimate Friendship with God. Chosen Books, 2008, 117.

[14] Benedict. The Rule, Penguin, 2008 Chapter 1.

[15] Stewart, C. Prayer and Community. Orbis Books, 1988, 28.

[16] Benedict. The Rule, Penguin, 2008 Chapter 7: 22, 24.