A message inspired by the life of St John of the Cross 1542-1591
Song of Solomon 1:4 The king hath brought me into his chambers; we will be glad and rejoice in thee; We will make mention of thy love more than of wine.
PSALM 36:8-9 You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your rivers of delight. For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see.
A BETTER TRANSLATION IS They shall be inebriated with the plenty of your house; and will give them to drink of the torrent of your delight, because with you is the fountain of life. Your love is better than wine!
When people drink wine they become influenced by it. Therefore we need the wine of God! Because when we become intoxicated in His love, we become abandoned to its influence! Our cry! Therefore is; Fill me with your love Jesus; Draw me away in your love Jesus! Cause me to be intoxicated in your Love Jesus! Because that sort of abandoned heart is possessed by that which it abandons itself to. (From the Book “Glory to Glory” www.papelim.org.nz/page18.html )
A Love sick individual in Church history, John of the cross 1542-1591 was Imprisoned for nine months in a cell six feet wide & ten feet long, with a window only two inches wide, he composed some beautiful poems and songs. Being so in love with the Lord he didn’t make sense to the religious so they locked him up in the hope he would see some sense. He came out more in love and distracted by the Lord than when he went inside.
A Love sick individual in Church history, John of the cross 1542-1591 was Imprisoned for nine months in a cell six feet wide & ten feet long, with a window only two inches wide, he composed some beautiful poems and songs. Being so in love with the Lord he didn’t make sense to the religious so they locked him up in the hope he would see some sense. He came out more in love and distracted by the Lord than when he went inside.
In prison St John of the cross wrote. “In the inner wine cellar I drank of my beloved, and when I went abroad through all this valley I no longer knew anything, and lost the herd which I was following.”
He also wrote: “South wind come, you that wakens love, breath through my garden, let its fragrance flow, and the beloved will feed amid the flowers.
His experience proved that no matter where we are, The Lord has gone there before us, and His love will always be found by those who seek it. (See Psalm 139)
There is no depth, No height, no Width to which we can go, that when we get there we find our Lord and master, our beloved Jesus.
There is a place before God, A place of abandoned love, A place that seems irrelevant to a religious heart. Where we can drink deep of the wine of God. The more we drink the more abandoned we become, Then we become separated from the herd, who are blindly following programs and systems. To the herd we seem useless, unable to make sense because of our intoxicated nature.
But out of the prisons come songs of abundant love. A place where we go on from saying “Lord Breath on me” to “Breath through me”.
John of the cross said. “The Garden is our soul, When the Lord breaths into the soul he imparts, but to breathe through the soul (garden) is to put in motion the fragrance.
It touches everything around us, and brings transformation. When I think of this I think of some friends, who when we were ministering in Wellington, were touched by the Holy Spirit, He breathed upon our friends in the lift of the hotel in which we had been staying, they became intoxicated in his love and unable to move just went up and down in the lift. Every time the door opened the same girl was standing there looking in at this unusual sight, the Holy Spirit breathed through the situation and the fragrance of this abandoned action touched the young lady, who by the way was a Muslim, She said, I want what your God gives, and they led her to the Lord.
You see a lot of people would say, just lock them up, After all we have to have a good testimony before the world, we have to be seen to have it all together, I mean the world won’t respond to or understand that intoxicated behaviour Will they?
John of the cross sums it up by say “God blesses his bride by breathing through her flowering garden, opens all these buds and uncovers the aromatic spices of gifts, and riches; and disclosing this interior treasure and wealth, He reveals all her beauty. Then she is something wonderful to behold and pleasant to handle.”
The world is thirsty and dry, the last thing they need is our nearly empty bottles of putrid religion. Rather they need to feel the breath of God. To see the joy of an abandoned life. They will say, What’s going on here? They will smell the fragrance of an inner beauty, that only comes from the Holy Spirit. Something wonderful to behold and pleasant to handle!
David dancing with an abandoned heart before the Lord, offends Michal his wife (the religious mindset) she despised him, but it pleased the Lord!
Matt Redman sums this up in His song “Undignified” The song goes; I will dance I will sing, to be mad for my King and nothing Lord is hindering the passion in my soul. And Ill become even more undignified than this, some would say its foolishness, but ill become even more undignified than this.
When we approach the Lord we need to come as if we ourselves are in a cell with nothing in our hands. All we can do is bow low before his majesty and glory, and drink deep of the wine of His love. Not distracted by our requests or our pleas, simply abandoned to his love, there we become intoxicated and our dance will please the Lord. it is Sure there will be a Michal to remind you of how you really should behave in the courts of the Lord, but just listen for the sound of His voice saying “Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter into your rest” That’s all that really matters at the end of the day.
May Jesus breath through your garden in 2008.
IAN JOHNSON
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