We can ask ourselves from which perspective do we look at love? How do we define love? How does love look? Would you recognize love if you saw love or experienced love?
Love is viewed from many perspectives. Love is even coupled with some of the most atrocious and ungodly acts, such as, “I just loved him/her to death” (literally) or “I will sacrifice my child to a god that I made with my mind and/or with my hands and I love my god.”
If a person commits such abominable acts, that’s not the kind of love that is from God. It’s a distortion of what is real love. Some persons might say, “Oh! I love my garden” or “I love that kind of food” or “I love my car” or “I love my house…. a sexually intimate partner.”
Can you apply love equally to any of these? How about throwing in, “I love my children…. I love my husband….I love my wife.” You can go on and on. You might remember these lyrics, “I wanna know what love is. I want you to show me.”
The Song of Solomon (a poem in celebration of love) offers a corrective to the sexual confusion and erotic excesses of our day. It gives a positive ideal to pursue, a portrait of married love. It is the epitome of what God has put into His exquisite, creation design of love between a man and a woman and the promise inherent within this design of a lifelong relationship.
Song of Solomon portrays romantic love that is neither obscene nor ashamed. It’s a beautiful picture of what we can aspire to, long for and appreciate. God knew that a man and a woman would be loving and romantic toward each other.
Don’t you think so…. surely you must know that the Almighty God — Jehovah created man and woman to love each other. He is the creator! You recall Adam and Eve were “naked in the garden and not ashamed.” (Genesis 2:25) Sex was God’s idea. It was after Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience that sexuality was tainted by shame and the potential abuse (Genesis: 3:8-13, 21).
The Song of Solomon is present in the scriptures as a reminder to married people and what to aspire to if you are unmarried and see what genuine love looks like. The images of true, godly love have been marred, distorted drastically.
God doesn’t change and He’s not going to change His mind just because you don’t like what He says or because you change your mind and decide to do whatever you want to do. Because He loves His creation, He explains and shows to us through the infallible, unchangeable scriptures what is His ideal and what He expects of us if we want to be with Him in eternity.
Some might say, “How can we live up to such a high ideal?” The ideal to which I refer is sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman is not God’s plan. WHAT?! That’s right. You heard me.
Do you want to risk everything and the most desirable place to be, because you want to make up your own rules? However, please hear this. Even though you can’t live up to the strictest of rules of God, that is the same problem people had in the very beginning in that God proclaimed to Adam and Eve do not eat from the tree in the midst of the garden.
He gave the 10 commandments and determined that He saw man was doing evil things, even from His youth, and that His creation had corrupted their way on the earth (Genesis 5:5-6:12) This made God very sad and unhappy!
He took action! He set forth the 10 commandments! Have no other gods before Him. He sent the flood! Please hear me on this. God is supreme. He is sovereign! He is omnipresent! He is omnipotent!
So, he says, “Okay.” You want to “do it your way?” All right. “Do it your way; but just remember this one thing – I am the great I am. I will have a say in all things. And you keep on doing what you want to do; but I will take action.” (He allowed COVID epidemic and got everyone’s attention).
But, in all this, Almighty God never gave up on His creation. So, what did He do? He said, “Because I am a forgiving God, I will send my Son, my One and Only Son. He will bring in the New Covenant (the New Testament). He will bring with Him His love and forgiveness for sin (activity against His Father.” (tune in next week)
Thanks for reading! Jeanette Grattan Parker is Founder-Superintendent Today’s Fresh Start Charter School 4514 Crenshaw Boulevard, LA 90043 323-293-9826 www.todaysfreshstart.org (Ask Dr. Jeanette TM) Inquiring Minds Want to Know” All articles are copyright. All rights reserved © The Holy Bible New Testament, Errors? Let me know. Sundays for music & message: 11:30am {1-712-775-8971—code 266751} References: Word in Life Study Bible; Berean Study Bible