We Love God!

God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.
C.H. Spurgeon

Now I know there are many dangers of striving for excellence. After all, haven’t we learned that Satan will take anything we do for good and seek to bring forth evil. We have been been taught, 2 Corinthians 2:11, to not be “ignorant of his schemes.” I know if we are not careful, a pursuit of excellence can lead to pride whereby we look down on others or desire to draw personal attention to ourselves or seek to be man-pleasers. I know it can lead to a reliance on our own strength and not God’s strength. I know it can lead to misplaced goals that believe the product is more important than the spiritual goals it aims to produce. I know it can lead to misplaced trust that excellence alone can somehow achieve God’s purposes. And I know it can lead to misplaced methods, looking to worldly techniques more than Scripture. I know all of these and now you do as well, but we can’t operate in fear as an excuse to excuse the behavior expected of us from the Lord.
Randy Smith

Bible – English_World – Song of Solomon Chapter 4:1-16.

Index: World English Bible

 

Song of Solomon 4

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4:1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, That descend from Mount Gilead.

4:2 Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, Which have come up from the washing, Where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them.

4:3 Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.

4:4 Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory, Whereon there hang a thousand shields, All the shields of the mighty men.

4:5 Your two breasts are like two fawns That are twins of a roe, Which feed among the lilies.

4:6 Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, To the hill of frankincense.

4:7 You are all beautiful, my love. There is no spot in you.

4:8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, With me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amana, From the top of Senir and Hermon, From the lions’ dens, From the mountains of the leopards.

4:9 You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, With one chain of your neck.

4:10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The fragrance of your perfumes than all manner of spices!

4:11 Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

4:12 A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; A locked up spring, A sealed fountain.

4:13 Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits: Henna with spikenard plants,

4:14 Spikenard and saffron, Calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; Myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices,

4:15 A fountain of gardens, A well of living waters, Flowing streams from Lebanon. Beloved

4:16 Awake, north wind; and come, you south; Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, And taste his precious fruits. Lover