We Keep God’s Courting Word by having a Responsive and Affectionate Love for Him

The entire Bible is a divine romance, and Song of Songs in particular is an abridged form of this romance between God and man; we need to keep God’s courting word by having a responsive and affectionate love for Him, loving Him as our Husband. Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You!

Most unbelievers and even many Christians have a wrong impression and feeling concerning God; they think that God is merely the Almighty One, the Judge of all, who will strike you if you make a mistake.

There is that aspect of God in which He judges sinners, but this is not what the Bible reveals primarily concerning Him.

The entire Bible shows us a romance – in the most pure and the most holy sense – of a universal couple: God and man.

However, if God is God and man is man, this romance cannot take place. God had to become a man to be like man, and His human living on earth was a courting of man, a wooing of man.

When others saw the Lord Jesus, they were simply attracted to Him; there was no outward beauty with Him, but He expressed the divine attributes through His human virtues, and men were drawn to Him.

If we read the Gospels we are simply amazed at this One who, though God, lived a life like us and was subject to weaknesses, persecutions, and mistreatment; yet in all these things, He lived out the Father and was one with the Father in all things.

After thirty-three and half years of human living on earth, the Lord Jesus went to the cross to die for us; He loved us so much that He was willing to die for us.

His dying love is so touching and so moving!

When He was on the cross, though He did not deserve to be there and die in this way, He did not complain but died for us, paid the price for our redemption, and bore our sins on His body on the tree.

After being buried for three days, He rose from the dead and became a life-giving Spirit to come into us and take us through a process of becoming like Him.

He became like us and now He is making us like Him.

In a couple, the husband and wife need to have the same life and nature, and they need to be of the same source, even as Adam and Eve had the same life and nature and were of the same source.

This is what the Lord is doing today; we are born in sin, but when we see His love and respond to Him, we enter into a divine-human romance with God in Christ, and we are transformed into His image to match Him for our marriage.

On one hand, Christ loved each one of us personally, and He died for each one of us; on the other hand, He loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

He wants to gain the church, the bride of Christ, for Him to marry and live an eternal married life in love. This is our destiny.

If we see this, we simply respond to Him in love and open to Him again and again, having a responsive and affectionate love for Him in our daily life. Lord Jesus, we love You!

The Bible is a Word of Divine Courtship, and we need to be Romantic Christians loving the Lord

The entire Bible is a divine romance, and the book of Song of Songs is an abridged form of this romance (Song of Songs 1:2-3; 8:14).

The Bible has 66 books and one of them is called, Song of Songs; this book comprised of eight chapters depicts a loving relationship between the king (Solomon) and a country girl.

We may not understand why such a book is there, but if we read and pray over it, if we pray this book to the Lord, we will be filled with love for Him.

This book is a miniature of the entire Bible, showing us the divine romance.

The Bible is a romantic book – the entire Bible is a word of divine courtship.

Our relationship with the Lord needs to become more and more romantic; we need to be romantic Christians who love the Lord Jesus by responding to His courting through His word and in our daily living (Song of Songs 4:7).

Is our relationship with the Lord becoming more romantic, or is it more formal or ritualistic?

Are we romantic Christians loving the Lord or are we just doing things according to a certain routine, having no love for the Lord and His word? Oh, Lord Jesus!

We may have picked up a lot of knowledge and even some spiritual skills, but how about our love for the Lord?

What about our romantic heart toward Him? Do we live in the divine romance? Do we have a romantic relationship with the Lord?

He loves us, He did so much for us, and He is courting us day by day; do we respond to Him in love and do we love Him more and more?

May the Lord shine on us and convict us of our lack of love toward Him.

May we allow Him to expose our lack of love toward Him, and may we come to Him again to be infused with Him as our love.

What the Lord is after is not a group of people who have a lot of knowledge about God or who do many things for Him; He wants us to love Him.

May we be saved from being lukewarm Christians. Even as lawlessness abounds around us and the love of many grows cold, may we be those who love the Lord by responding to His courtship.

May we stand firm for His testimony on earth and have a romantic and affectionate love toward the Lord day by day.

May we even pray to be saved from anything of a routine in our Christian life.

If there’s no romance between us and the Lord, then we’re religious Christians, not romantic Christians (Song of Songs 1:2-3).

Loving the Lord is not something that we do only at the beginning of our Christian life; it is something that we need to develop and grow into more and more as we advance in the Lord.

Loving Jesus with the best love is not beginner stuff, for the new ones; our love for the Lord needs to grow, and we need to be romantic Christians who love the Lord more and more.

If we lose our first love for the Lord, He will rebuke us and, unless we repent and do the first works, He may even remove the lampstand from us (Rev. 2).

We are here on earth for the Lord, for His testimony; we want to have the shining lampstand, shining in this dark age for the Lord.

However, we can be the testimony of Jesus only when we love the Lord, when we have a romantic and affectionate love for Him.

If we are not romantic Christians with the Lord, if we don’t love the Lord with the first love, we cannot be His testimony.

The Lord must rekindle, refresh, and renew this love within us.

We don’t want to be religious Christians but romantic Christians who always tell Him, Lord Jesus, I love You!

John Nelson Darby, even toward the end of his life, when he was travelling and was exhausted, simply told the Lord, Lord Jesus, I still love You!

Though we may labour, do so many things, and even be exhausted, we can still tell Him that we love Him.

The Bible as a whole is a word of the divine courtship; in the Bible, we see that God is seeking our love (2 Cor. 11:2).

From the very beginning, He courted man, and the entire Bible ends with a couple – the Spirit and the bride speaking in oneness and calling all those who are thirsty to come and drink (Rev. 22:17).

From the time God made man to the end of the ages, God courts man, woos man, and draws man to Himself.

Today we are still under God’s courtship until we are fully taken over by Him. May we respond to Him in love and tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we love You. Thank You for coming to us in love to court us and draw us to Yourself. Your mighty love, oh God, constrains us. We just respond to You in love and tell You that we love You. Save us from being religious Christians; we want to be romantic Christians who love You more and more. May our relationship with You become more and more romantic. Save us from being formal and ritualistic in our Christian life. Save us from mere forms, outward practices, and rituals in our Christian life. Oh Lord, increase our love for You. Cause us to love You more. Show us Your love toward us. Grant us to have a romantic and affectionate love toward You. Lord Jesus, we love You!

We Keep God’s Courting Word by having a Responsive and Affectionate Love for Him

How can we keep God’s courting word? How should we respond to the Lord when we see His love?

Throughout the centuries we see that God has had a romance with man; He didn’t just want man to serve Him or worship Him but to love Him. In eternity God was alone; we may even say that He was lonely, that is, that He needed a counterpart to match Him in love.

So He created man in His own image according to His being; He is a lover, a loving God, and we are created to love the Lord.

The Bible is God’s courting word to us; if we are to keep God’s courting word, we need a responsive, affectionate love for Him.

Such love is depicted in Song of Songs, where we see a portrait of the love between the Beloved and His love (Song of Songs 1:2-4; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; John 14:21, 23).

In the Old Testament God didn’t just want to gain a people to worship Him; He courted man, beginning with Abraham, and He drew them to Himself.

The Ten Commandments were not a law given to them to keep outwardly; it was His love letter to them, showing them what He is.

God was not expecting His people to do what the law says; He was presenting to them what He is, and He was seeking to have their love.

He simply wanted to impress them with what He is so that they would love Him.

He is loving, righteous, just, holy, and full of life and light; He is the most handsome and perfect One, and He wants to gain His people’s affection.

He just wants us to love Him affectionately.

We keep God’s courting word by having a responsive and affectionate love for Him.

If we say like the people of Israel did, All that God said, we will do! He will not be happy; He doesn’t want us to try to do what He tells us that He is – He just wants us to love Him and open to Him.

We are incapable of being the way He is and doing what He requires us to do, but we love Him, we open to Him, and we allow Him to come in us and do in us what He wants us to do.

He wants to marry us; He courts us with His word in the Bible, and He draws us to Himself.

This is portrayed in the book of Song of Songs; the subject of this book is the history of love in an excellent marriage, revealing the progressive experience of an individual believer’s loving fellowship with Christ.

Song of Songs is short but full of figures and pictures showing us how God as the Lover courts us, draws us, woos us, and transforms us to be His loving bride.

We start by being very different from what He is, and we end up being the same as He is, the Shullamite, the feminine form of Solomon.

We are like a mare, a wild horse pulling Pharaoh’s chariot, full of worldliness and being so natural.

But as we pursue the Lord in love, we are changed, transformed, and conformed to His image.

We are transformed from a horse to having the eyes of a dove, being like a lily, a pillar of cloud, a palanquin for the Lord, and even a crown on the Lord’s head.

Loving the Lord is not just a feeling that we get when we sing songs of love for Him; our romantic and affectionate love for Him causes us to be transformed and conformed to His image, and our person is subdued.

He transforms us as we pursue Him in love until we become like Him to match Him in every possible way.

Song of Songs is a marvellous and vivid portrait, in a poetic form, of the bridal love between Christ as the Bridegroom and His lovers as His bride (Song of Songs 2:4; 6:3; 7:11-12; 8:5-6, 14).

May we keep the Lord’s word by having a responsive and affectionate love for Him. The Lord asked Peter if he loves Him so that He may recover his love for Him.

Paul was constrained to love the Lord with such a love (2 Cor. 5:14-15). We all need to love the Lord in this way, having a responsive and affectionate love toward Him.

As we read the Lord’s courting word in the Bible, we are being betrothed to Him so that we may become a pure virgin espoused to Christ.

And our married life shows us that Christ loves us and gave Himself up for us, and it is with this love that the husbands should love their wives (Eph. 5:25).

May we open to the Lord and come to Him as we are to be infused with Him as our love, and may we allow His love to constrain us so that we have a responsive and affectionate love for Him in our Christian life.

Lord Jesus, we want to keep God’s courting word in the Bible by having a responsive and affectionate love for You. We just respond to You, dear Lord, by loving You back. Your love constrains us. You are our Beloved and we just love You. Thank You for betrothing us to Yourself through Your word. Keep us loving You. Keep us in the process of being transformed and conformed to Your image so that we may be Your bride, matching You for our marriage and married life together. Oh Lord, grant us to have an affectionate relationship with You with no formality or ritual. We love You, our beloved Bridegroom! May we progress in our loving fellowship with You until we become the bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, matching You in every possible way!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee in the message, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 648-653, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity for the Divine Economy (2022 Thanksgiving Weekend Conference), week 2, entitled, Experiencing the Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity by Living in the Divine Romance.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Loved with everlasting love, / Led by grace that love to know; / Spirit, breathing from above, / Thou hast taught me it is so. / Oh, this full and perfect peace! / Oh, this transport all divine! / In a love which cannot cease, / I am His, and He is mine. (Hymns #284 stanza 1)
  – Thy mighty love, O God, constraineth me, / As some strong tide it presseth on its way, / Seeking a channel in my self-bound soul, / Yearning to sweep all barriers away. / Shall I not yield to that constraining power? / Shall I not say, O tide of love, flow in? / My God, Thy gentleness hath conquered me, / Life cannot be as it hath hither been. (Hymns #431 stanzas 1-2)
  – Jesus Lord, my best love Thou art, / Thou hast fully captured my heart; / None compares with Thee, none on earth or heav’n, / God yet man, most beautiful One! / How I longed to vanish in Thee / When Thy tender voice came to me. / All past loves forsaking most joyfully, / I’d just love Thee — wholeheartedly. / Who in all the world is as fair as Thee? / Or who else can love so romantic’ly? / Oh, most holy One, now You live in me! / Jesus Lord, I deeply love Thee! (Song on, Jesus Lord, my best love Thou art, stanza 1 and chorus)