31 Day Daily Devotional SERIES for the Garden of the Heart: DAY 30

DAY 30

God is love....

1 John 4:16

 Now when I passed by thee, 

and looked upon thee, behold, 

thy time was the time of love; 

and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness:

Ezekiel 16:8

 

DAILY REMINDER

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 

and have not LOVE, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, 

and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 

and have not LOVE, I am nothing. 

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not LOVE, it profiteth me nothing.

LOVE suffereth long, and is kind; 

LOVE envieth not; 

LOVE vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, 

is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 

And now abideth faith, hope, LOVE, these three; 

but the greatest of these is LOVE.

And from Jesus Christ, .... Unto him that loved us, 

and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

1 Corinthians 13:1-5,13/Revelation 1:5

 

"I sleep,

but my heart wakes:

it is the voice of my beloved that knocks.
  Song of Solomon 5:2

 I. First, then, here is SLUMBER CONFESSED.
The spouse laments her state, and sighs out, "I sleep."  

Sleep is cousin unto death, and he that slumbers lies at the door of the sepulcher. 

II. We reach the point of the paradox; here is WATCHFULNESS CLAIMED by one who confessed to sleep.
"My heart wakes," says the Bride, "I sleep, but my heart wakes."

The spouse gave another proof of her wakefulness by her 'discernment'. She says, "It is the voice of my beloved that knocks." Even when half asleep she knew her Lord's voice.
This puzzle of "I sleep, but my heart wakes," has been experienced by thousands.

 III. MYSTERY SOLVED.
"I sleep, but my heart wakes." How does her heart wake? It is because the voice and knock of her Beloved are heard.

 --That field all tangled with the brambles tore the shepherd when he sought you out, 

--and the briars will tear you also if you wander there."

 "The love of God embraces the whole world,  

but it also singles out each individual."

 

"The parable of the straying sheep should be treasured as a motto in

every household.

The fact that one sheep was lost was enough to awaken the sympathy of the Shepherd and start Him on His quest."

Charles Spurgeon/E.J. Waggoner/E.G.W.

 

 Closing Thought for the Day

 A certain man had two sons:  

And the younger of them said to his father, 

Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.

And he divided unto them his living.  

 

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.  

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.  

 

And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and

he sent him into his fields to feed swine.  

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.  

 

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.  

 

And he arose, and came to his father. 

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.  

 

And the son said unto him, Father, 

I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.  

 

But the father said to his servants,  

Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. 

And they began to be merry.

But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off 

are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

For God so loved the world, 

that he gave his only begotten Son, 

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,

but have everlasting life.

Luke 15:11-24/John 3:16/Ephesians 2:13