Secure in Love 1️⃣

Well well well🙃 (not me showing up shamelessly like I didn't just lose my consistency for a month🥲. But seriously I promise I'll do better next time😊). It's finally take two on Songs of Songs and boy, am I so excited for you to read this! It may not be what you were expecting 👀 but believe me you need to hear this. I need it too. As long as you find yourself stumbling here and there and doing things that don't please God (which I believe is a struggle every authentic Christian is bound to face), you need to know that it doesn't disqualify your genuine love for Him, and His for you. Let's get started!

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Song 7:10 RSV

I am my beloved’s,

and his desire is for me.

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(We'll go on a detour for this particular blog then get back to the relevance of the story of these two lovers in Song of Songs as it pertains to being secure in Love in the next blog. For reasons we all know studying this book in isolation will only make matters more complicated ~ it's why I chose to do this in two parts. Our first blog will be a brief study on Peter then with that we'll get back to chapter five of Song of Songs in the next one. It's a pretty interesting story so please follow through till we get there. 😊)

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Matthew 26:40-41 NKJV

Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 

Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

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We all know that our walk of salvation will not always be a smooth ride. There'll be times when we'll find ourselves stumbling. This just proves the weakness of our human flesh and our spiritual immaturity. The beauty and irony about being secure in Love is that you can come up short and still be clean before God. Not that your sin doesn't matter, but that even the willingness of your spirit matters. The willingness in Peter's spirit cannot be overlooked, much as we like to focus on the fact that he stumbled. Check this:

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Matthew 26:33-35 NKJV

Peter answered and said to Him, "Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble."

Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times." 

Peter said to Him, "Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!" And so said all the disciples.

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What's incredible is that God saw the genuine cry of his heart even when he stumbled. In Luke's account he records Jesus' words in that moment: But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren. God saw the 'Yes!' in his spirit. That's why there was a difference between him and Judas. Judas had a betraying heart and his sin was beyond stumbling while Peter's heart was a sincere one that had just encountered the weakness of his flesh.

It's why though Peter stumbled when he denied God, Jesus was so sure of his return to Him that He asked him to strengthen his fellow disciples. He even took it upon Himself to pray for him. Check the contrast in Jesus' words when it came to Judas: What you're about to do, do quickly. Jesus didn't seem to bother much about restoring Judas - not because He didn't care about him, but because of the condition of Judas' heart. His was a betraying heart. He was already hell-bent on going against his Teacher and there was no turning back in his case.

On the outside, they both seemed to have fallen. Ask any Sunday school kid about what they know about Jesus' arrest and crucifixion. They'll confidently tell you that Peter denied Jesus three times, and Judas betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver. The outcome, however, is what reveals the difference in their hearts. They both grieved over what they had done...but, Judas could never get himself to face Jesus ever again. It's why he took his own life (Acts 1:18-19). Peter, on the other hand, literally ran to Him. Such is the response of one that is secure in love. Check this:

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John 21:7 NLT

Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic (for he had stripped for work), jumped into the water, and swam ashore.

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Judas was so caught up in the greatness of his sin that he lost sight of the vastness of Christ's Love and Mercy. He ran from Jesus. Peter was well aware of the two, as revealed to him by Jesus: the weakness of his flesh, and the willingness of his spirit (which was a product of his genuine love for Jesus). After he stumbled, the weakness of his flesh become so real that he ran to Jesus - he acknowledged his desperate need for Him. He repented the moment the magnitude of what he had done fully dawned on him. Though he stumbled, he was still a lover of God. Because of the work of Christ, he was still clean before God. 

In light of that, though you and I stumble, we are still lovers of God. Because of the work of Christ, we are still clean before God. This message is not for us to be complacent in our view of sin, but to free us from the condemnation that the enemy tries to bind us with each time we stumble. As long as we are secure in Love, our response will be like that of Peter, not Judas.

Though God empowers us and crowns us with glory and honor as His sons and co-heirs with Christ, He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust. It's time we stop beating ourselves up each time we realize our weaknesses. It's time we take this into account too, and know that in spite of that, He is still the object of our love. 

The criterion for ministry in Christ's mind and heart is not one's strength and ability to serve Him faithfully. Rather, it is love. It was Peter's genuine love for Jesus that qualified him to serve as an apostle, not his ability to never stumble. His security had at first been based on his own ability never to fall. Later, it was in the fact that he was loved by God, and that he too loved Him genuinely. 

What Peter had lost in that moment between Christ's crucifixion and resurrection was his faith. Scripture records that he went back fishing, and the other disciples followed him (John 21:3). Nevertheless, his heart was still burning with love for Jesus. He just didn't fully understand what was going on and what he was supposed to do now that Christ was no longer with them. From the way he answered Jesus' questions, it is clear that he never for a moment doubted the love he had for Jesus in his heart. Check this:

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John 21:15-17 NIV

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these? Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

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In the heat of the confusion, the guilt of the sin of denying Christ, the grief in his spirit, the one thing he knew he still possessed was that genuine love for Jesus. It's why it was to him that the mandate was given to lead the rest of the disciples in fulfilling the Great Commission. He truly loved Jesus more than they. 

In asking the question three times, Christ was re-establishing a new criterion from which Peter's ministry would be launched. In so doing, Jesus helped Peter recover his faith. He reminded him that he actually loved Him regardless of what had happened. Peter's heart cry in that moment must have been: Yes Lord! I love You! I want to serve You...

His love, though weak, was still seen as genuine by God. This takes us back to what we'd mentioned in passing before. The Father doesn't want a bride for His Son who has been threatened into submission. Rather, He wants a pure love...a willing heart...a bride who is a lover and not a mere servant. Such are the hearts He is seeking. Is that the cry of your heart? Would you consider your love for God as genuine as this?

                             

One last thing...

Sin has a way of making us build walls of shame and guilt around ourselves. Oftentimes when we fall and come up short, we're quick to shut out the grace of God. We want to punish ourselves and put ourselves on probation or purgatory for a season. We think that in so doing we'll somehow get to deserve forgiveness. 

However, God wants us so secure in Love that even when we stumble, we can still approach His throne of grace with confidence. Jesus broke the power of shame related to Peter's denial so as to reinstate him into a position of confidence in the throne of grace. 

Truth be told, most of us wouldn't respond as Peter did. We'd probably fumble with our words and mumble something unintelligible because our hearts are tightly locked with shame. Peter may have had a couple of those thoughts creeping in. He instead chose to boldly say what he knew to be true from the onset and not the turmoil of thoughts and emotions that were plaguing him. 

Our real task is maintaining this confession as lovers of God. Many voices around us will try to make us feel 'less than' by basing our confession on our weaknesses, flaws, failures and the areas with which we struggle most. The Father defines us, however, as ones who love Him and as those whom He loves. That is our identity. He has betrothed us to Himself in love. No longer do we call Him 'Master'. He says, "And it shall be, in that day, that you will call Me, 'My Husband'."(Hosea 2:16)

You and I are not insignificant before Him. The Son of God, the eternal heavenly Bridegroom, has chosen us as the delight of His heart. He has chosen us to rule and reign in that vast, eternal, expanding empire called the kingdom of God. We are what His heart beats for. We are what He longs for. We are what He waits for.

One of the greatest tricks the enemy uses to tempt us and lure us away from God is the battle of identity. It's why in tempting Jesus in the wilderness he'd start with "If you are the Son of God ..." But Jesus was so secure, established and conversant with His identity as God's Son that He dared not fall for those tricks.

It's time we too are established in our identity as lovers of God, and as those whom He loves. That is the foundation on which every other thing is to be built on. If we are secure in Love, when the rains come down, the streams rise and the winds blow and beat against us, we will remain standing. We will not allow people who are not worthy of us to treat us as they please, or people who only pretend to love us to take advantage of us. This will always be our confession:

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I am not insignificant.

I am the one He loves.

I am the one He died for 

I am the one He longs for 

I am the one He waits for.

I am my Beloved's,

His desire is for me.

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