...For Your love is better than wine.(by Gbile Akanni)

"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth; for Your love is better than wine. For Your ointments have a lovely fragrance; Your name is as oil poured out; therefore the virgins love You."

Songs 1:2-3

This is the crux of the matter. Recognition and an appreciation of your love within my heart is the force drawing me. It is better and more fulfilling than wine. Men who drink wine seek a feeling and an intoxication that lifts their souls into realms of ‘lostness’ in a fleeting happiness. They seek a relaxation that makes them forget for a time their sorrows and toils. But it is clear that, in wine is no lasting refreshing. It actually inflicts greater wounds at the end of the day. Your love is better than wine.
To know your love and to actually abide in your love is to dwell in the highest place of security. It is to walk in the path of deep acceptance. It is to abide in the favour of the Lord. Your love pays more than all silver and gold. I want to know the length, the breadth, the height and the depth of the Love of God in Christ Jesus.

"that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:17-19 NKJV

This love passes knowledge. It is beyond human comprehension. Yet it is in comprehending this love that I may enter into the fullness of divine provisions for me in Christ. Solomon saw your love as better than wine. He saw your love beyond the loves of women he had tasted here and there. He saw your love as surpassing to all the goods of this world he has amassed. He came to a conclusion that it is your love that is better. It is what to seek to experience.

I know the love of a wife, the care and the tenderness of a loving wife. Yet your own love is incomparable. It is the love that took you to the Cross. It made you lay down your life for me, a sinner. Lord, this is the cry of my heart today. I want to know your love. I want to comprehend along with all the saints what is the length, the breadth, the height and the depth of that love. Grant, dear Lord that I may actually walk in the reality of that love henceforth in Jesus name.

For Your ointments have a lovely fragrance;.....

Good News Bible renders this verse thus:

"There is a fragrance about you; the sound of your name recalls it. No woman could keep from loving you."Songs 1:3

Yes, there is a fragrance about Christ. It is the fragrance of life. It is the fragrance of a lovely life. A life of obedience; a life of total submission to God indeed releases a sweet savour. It is a sweet smelling savour of an uncorrupted life. It is gentle and meek. It is unperturbed with any of the earthly pressures. Ever joyful and ever calm even in the midst of a storm. But the challenge to my heart today is that He wants to transfer that fragrance of life to me. He wants to rub that on me till I can smell so sweet among men for Him. He desires to make me that very aroma of His life as I get to know Him more and more. He wants to use me to spread abroad among men this same fragrance of His own life. He is irresistible. He is all conquering. He conquers the most reluctant of men, not with a gun but by this aroma of His character. Those who would avoid this aroma must hold their breath until they finally die out of suffocation.

O Lord, I have seen again what you will to make of me, as I come into this communion with you. A life that men can not ignore. It is not the shouting on the pulpit that you long for in me, but a life that emits the aroma of life; the fragrance of a sweet smell that compels men to drink in a fresh breath of life. I must come into this definite experience in my life henceforth. It is the task I have been called into. It is the ministry into which I have been graciously called in thy mercy.

Help me today and all my days to esteem this as the one thing to pursue. It is that I may bear about in my body the aroma of your life oozing out of me continually. Look at the word of God to me in 2 Cor. 2:14-17 in the William’s Translation

"But thanks be to God, for He always leads me in His triumphal train, through union with Christ, and everywhere through me keeps spreading the perfume of the knowledge of Him. Indeed, I am the fragrance of Christ to God, alike for those who are being saved and for those who are perishing; to the one a deadly perfume that leads to death, to the other a living perfume that leads to life. Now who is qualified for such a task? I am, for I am not a peddler of God's message, like the most of them, but like a man of sincerity, like a man that is sent from God and living in His presence, in union with Christ I speak His message. "2Co 2:14-17 Wms-NT

O Lord, this is the clear commission I have received of you today. But it is clear to me that it is only possible as you rub your life on me in deep continuous communion. I will only bear that aroma if you have fried me dry of all that belong to the flesh. I will only ooze out this sweet aroma of your life if all of the decay of the old man, the debris of the flesh has been evacuated.

Father, here I am again at thy feet. Deal with me as thou sees it meet. Thy work, begin and thy work complete, but take me as I am.

"...No woman could keep from loving you"

This is the irresistible nature of your life. It is a magnet that no genuine man can resist. It draws men irresistibly into the kingdom. Lord, please share this nature of yours with me. Do something in me that will release a compelling anointing upon me that drags men into the kingdom and into a life of commitment to you. I long O Lord for this in the ministry you have graciously given to me among thy people. It is not a drawing of men to myself that I long for, but to become a dragnet for men to know you and to serve you. It is not about being popular that I ask for, it is to be an effective fisher of men out of the waters of this world. Grant that no man, no woman could keep from loving You as I bear you about into the nations. O Lord, do this for me for the sake of thy glorious name.

                                 

GLEANINGS..."A weekly Devotional" by Gbile Akanni