The barriers we erect…have we become “comfortable” away from Christ?
Song of Solomon 2:8-10 “The voice of my Beloved! behold, He cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, He standeth behind our wall, He looketh forth at the windows, shewing Himself through the lattice.
My Beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
Here is a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ coming and calling us on.
But there is a barrier….a wall that separates us from the Lord.
(I talked with a woman once about knowing Christ Jesus in a more personal relationship. As I was dealing with her, she finally stopped the conversation with:
“I am comfortable where I am with Christ.”
Have we gotten comfortable where we are with Christ…or are we pressing on? Philippians 3:12-14)
The next thing we need to see….is that it is His Voice which awakens us to our condition.
And how many times does He use His Word, spoken by preachers, teachers, or through devotions…to awaken us to His call.
He calls us to “rise up and come away”….indicating that there is something to leave….and something to go on to.
This wall is our spiritual experience…up-to-date. It is “our wall”….not my wall or His wall…but a wall that is built by the things we go through because we are the Lord’s.
Some of these things leave us feeling exuberant….some of these things leave us feeling wounded….some of these things are simply building blocks we are to use to go on…but we don’t.
Now let us deal with that wall.
A wall is made up on stones, bricks….pieces of things in our lives….which begin to pile up.
For the most part…they are simple commands which have not been obeyed. Things that just need to be done….or seen to.
For some, it is a matter of destroying certain blocks of the wall. Things that you must give up!
(Here is where personal conviction comes in. Things that may be alright for others to do….but I can not….because the Lord will not let me.
The places we go, the things we allow, are they part of God’s plan for me…..do they help me grow in grace….or am I walking on the edge, next to the world system?
1 Corinthians 6:12 “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” [Also in 1 Cor. 10:23.]
Expedient means here to contribute, to give advantage.
Not everything contributes to my spirituality….my growth in Christ.
I would mention here, as well,….that some believe there is no gray area in our spiritual life. It is either God’s Will, or not (I believe this). Some believe in a gray area.
There are certainly lots of pursuits which are not right. Those we need to give up right away.
But there are others….which are pleasurable which are not wrong….yet need to be sanctified or set aside to God.
For others, it is a matter of discarding certain things of your spiritual childhood…and going on to more mature things, with Him.
Putting away childish things.
1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Paul has been speaking of the love of Christ which should separate us from many things we would normally feel or do.
Love suffereth long and is kind! Love does not envy others! Love seeks not her own, is not easily angered!
Whose love acts like this?
It is only One….the Lord Jesus Christ’s love…in us, and through us.
Then Paul speaks of the doing away of…“things in part”….
…prophesies will be fulfilled and become history.
…every language will be done away with….when Christ comes.
Then comes the statement….”When I was a child…”
Paul wanted the Corinthians,… who were acting childish….going off into cliches….taking sides and not acting for the whole group….to know, that he too, had to grow up into Christ.
And how had he done that? By “putting away” childish things, in speech….in his understanding of God’s dealings….in his thoughts about others.
And how is that done? By Christ’s love replacing my thoughts, attitudes, and reactions to everything which the Lord sends my way.
(My husband preached on this verse….
Childish speaking…..”it got broke”. When a child is playing ball, and the ball breaks a glass or vase….a child will say, when asked what happened….”the ball hit it!”
But when we become a man, we take responsibility for our actions….and their consequences…”I broke it”.
Childish understanding….is limited to the experience that the child would have had., and often is limited to what they want to believe.
Paul had known the same scriptures before and after the martyrdom of Stephen….but he got “exceeding mad” at the new understanding that Stephen’s message gave him. He did not want to believe it….so he refused it. Till the blinding Light of Christ made him give up his childish refusal….and surrender to God’s love.
Childish thoughts….are always putting us in the center of everything….in the foreground of all reactions. How does this affect me? How will I look if I do this? What will people think?
But when we put away childish thoughts….we begin to seek the glory of the Lord, first….and leave ourselves in the Lord’s hands.
Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and HIs righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” )
There are many pieces of our spiritual experience up-to-date that we need to see done.
We need to place ourselves into the mighty flood of Christ’s love….and hear the call to let them go….and go on to more fuller experiences with Christ.
Song of Solomon 2:8, 10 “The Voice of my Beloved! Behold, He cometh leaping upon the mountains…”
(Have you started leaping over those impossible difficulties in your feelings, in your conversations, and in your actions toward others?)
“….skipping upon the hills.”
(Have you begun to know true victory over the little irritants and frustrations which attack you every day?)
“My Beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
(“My love”….how much we need the more mature manifestations of HIs love to us…that constant fellowship of peace and joy.)
Have we heard HIs voice? Are we ready to see to “our wall”?
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 