As you know, the Song of Solomon is not only the marriage manual, but it is also an allegory of Father God and the Church (which is you and I). In that context, I am awestruck by the first words of our Lover (Father God) on the marriage night with his bride. This is Father God speaking to each and every one of us.
“Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! ….” (Song of Solomon 4:1, ESV)
Do you see yourself as beautiful to Father? I am quite used to singing about His beauty, but I am very unaccustomed and unconfortable – especially as a man – to seeing myself as beautiful in the eyes of God. To be honest, I often struggle with this, yet I believe it is crucial to view myself through God’s eyes and not those of my enemy or my flesh.
“Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon. Come down from Mount Amana, from the peaks of Senir and Hermon, where the lions have their dens and leopards live among the hills.” (Song of Solomon 4:8, NLT)
God is calling me – calling us – to come away with Him. To come out of those places where lions and leopards roam, hunt, and devour. He is our protector and we are safe with him and He passionately loves and adores his bride (which is you and me!) With this new perspective – read the following passage. Note: The term “sister” is actually a romantic term of endearment – from the Hebrew word ‘achowth (אָחֹות) – of which, one of the meanings is “beloved”, “bride”, “of intimate connection”.
“You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your oils than any spice! Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a spring locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices— a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.” (Song of Solomon 4:9-15, ESV)
The Lover of our souls is captivated with us! Isn’t that wild? Read the passage again and this time look at all the references to the senses, just in this passage. I underlined all the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, textures in this passage. Father captured my attention in Song of Songs on how many reference to physical senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, sound) there are, but has drawn me particularly to the sense of smell. I believe He has something awesome to show us. Did you see all the fragrances in this one passage? There are tons of references to smell, not just in this passage, but in the whole book of Song of Songs.
One night on my Quest, I was overwhelmed by the realization of how my sin must smell to Father God. I heard a speaker one time, that likened the depravity of our souls to the foulest stench of a cesspool. This picture has haunted me and is something that for the last 18 months continues to come to mind. When He convicts me of my sin, be that a judgmental attitude or act (the greatest struggle I face today), or some other prideful or selfish act, I wonder what I that smells like to Him. It causes me to wonder what I smell like to Him, all the time… even right now as I sit here writing this devotional. I often wonder if I am so accustomed to my own stench that I am unaware of some unconfessed sin, some unearthed root of bitterness, or some unrelinquished anger I am holding onto – stinking up his nostrils.
Our ability to smell and various odors is an amazingly potent stimulus. Bruce Turetsky, a University of Pennsylvania associate psychiatry professor, suggests that different scents may “have a greater ability to bring up an emotional memory in you than seeing a picture or hearing a voice.” How many times have you smelled cookies, turkey, cinnamon, (_fill _in_the_blank_) and it stirs up some deep rooted memory that you haven’t thought of in years? All of a sudden you remember a time, way back when, at Grandma’s house, or at a Doctor’s office, or whatever. Our sense of smell is amazing. One of my favorite parts about the Discovery Channel’s show “Dirty Jobs” is when the host – Mike Rowe – in the midst of what looks like the foulest, yuckiest, stinky-est, muck around – stares right into the camera with that perplexed, yet disgusted look and a says, “I wish you could smell this!”
In the context of smell, Father has dumped several thoughts on me and I’m going to try to put them together in as concise a fashion as possible.
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Not By My Own Sight:
It is commonly known that people who lose one of their physical senses (e.g. sight, hearing, etc.) often experience a heightened sensitivity to their other senses. In other words, they hear things they never heard before; they smell things they have never smelled before, etc. I believe Father is telling me, telling us, that we often rely too much on our own sight – on what we “see”.
“Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (John 12:3, NIV)
Judas saw an extravagant offering and objected to it. Jesus reprimanded him for his short-“sightedness”. I submit that the fragrance that filled Father God’s nostrils that night wasn’t that of the nard, but that of Mary’s heart and devotion. She was living out “… walk by faith, not by sight.”
Father wants us to walk in His sight, not by our own sight.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1, ESV)
God is calling me to look through His Eyes at myself, and not my own eyes. It’s also a call not to look at myself through the jaded eyes of my enemy, the Devil. Revelations says that the Devi
l stands before God day and night continually accusing the Saints. My accuser wants me to see myself as defeated, as a loser, as a liar, as a cheat, as … . That is NOT how Father God sees me. That is now how the Lover of my soul sees me. He sees me as Beautiful. (Song 4:1) But, I’m a sinner… how can he see me as beautiful? Because of the cross….
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Confession:
I have been praying about a statement I wrote earlier, “I often wonder if I am so accustomed to my own stench that I am unaware of some unconfessed sin, some unearthed root of bitterness, or some unrelinquished anger I am holding onto – stinking up his nostrils?” Humanity’s sense of smell is not as acute as other creatures of God’s creation, for example, the dog. I’ve heard it said that a dog’s sense of smell is hundreds of times sharper than ours. Where you and I smell a cake when we come into a room, a dog does not smell a cake, but smells each individual ingredient in the cake: flour, sugar, eggs, baking soda, milk, and so on. This is why I can’t always see or smell myself. When I come home from a run, I stink. I don’t smell it because I’ve become accustomed to it as I “became stinky.” When I get stinky (and usually it’s my wife that tells me I do) I can go throw on a little deodorant, or cologne to cover it up. I know that when I can smell my own stink, I’m in a BAD WAY!!! I believe there is a spiritual truth here. If good things smell good and sin stinks, I smell the “overall” fragrance. Father does not. God smells each individual fragrance, aroma, and odor. I can cover it up so I don’t smell anything stinky at all, but that not what He wants. He doesn’t want me to cover it up, or blend it in; He wants to wash me out and cleanse me of all unrighteousness. How? Confession as He convicts me.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,” (Ephesians 5:25-26, NIV)
In this passage, God is the husband and he is washing his wife (us) clean.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, ESV)
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Growth & Usage: Once we’re clean, then Papa wants to put on the sweet fragrances of Heaven. He wants to douse us up with his cologne. Father’s “cologne” for us is Christ living in us, our transformation, and our spiritual growth and sacrifice.
“But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15, NLT)
Those fragrances – that cologne of Heaven – are varied and fragrant as we live transformed lives and grow in our walk. We all know that fruits have various smells and individual and attractive scents. Oranges don’t smell like apples, bananas don’t smell like figs. I believe to Father – who can smell every individual scent – the fruits of the Holy Spirit each have their own individual aroma and fragrance (Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control). A stagnant and rotted fruit stinks. Again, this is another spiritual truth. We have to continue to grow in the Lord. We have to continue to grow those fruits. I have to continue to nurture and feed and create an atmosphere for the growth of the Fruits. Just like a stagnant pond stinks and kills the life in it, a stagnant life stinks to Father and kills the relationship living in it. We can’t become stagnant – we have to continually strive or more growth, because we NEVER arrive, until God brings us home.
I submit each virtue also carries it’s unique fragrance as we live out in our transformation, as in 2 Peter 2:5-7.
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” (2 Peter 1:5-7, ESV)
Those who are fortunate enough to know what the fragrance of true Freedom smells like, must continue to hone our sense of smell to live in that Freedom. We have to learn to hunt down that scent and be attentive to the individual fragrances, not the “overall smell”. It’s not about the overall smell, it’s all about pure fragrance and how Our Lover sees us. He washes us and cleanses us. He puts his cologne all over us. He relishes in our fragrance as he passionately pursues and woos and romances us.
Take Away’s
- See ourselves through the eyes of Father God.
- A regular life of confession and repentance.
- Tend to the garden of Spiritual Fruit and Character.
A good friend of mine summarized this devotional well after he read it saying.
“I see the dichotomy very clearly now. We have a clear choice to make as believers: His fragrance or our stench.”
I think that sums it up pretty well….
Running After Papa….
