Rabbi Schneider — The Fragrance of Love
Beloved ones, you're not gonna want to miss today's episode I'm calling The Fragrance of Love. God has given us senses to be able to experience him in a special, mysterious way. Join me for this edition of Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
Shalom and God bless you, beloved ones. My name's Rabbi Schneider. Welcome today to this edition of Discovering the Jewish Jesus. I'm in a series I'm calling A Baptism of Love. I'm taking you on a short journey through the Song of Songs. Several years ago, I preached full episodes on it.
Now what I'm doing is just focusing on highlights because there's something in the Song of Songs that is unique and unlike any other book in the Word of God. In fact as I shared with you on last week's broadcast, the ancient rabbis actually looked at the Song of Songs as the Holy of Holies of the Hebrew Bible.
Now on last week's episode, we were in chapter 1, and I began by sharing how the Shulamite bride began her journey into the baptism of love with an intense desire. We read in verse number 4 there that she says: The king has brought me into his chambers. In other words, her journey into the baptism of love began when she encountered Jesus in her life.
Once again, chapter 1, verse 4B, she says: The king has brought me into his chambers. What this tells us is the necessity of having an encounter with King Jesus.
In other words, your experience is gonna be different from my experience, and it's gonna be unique. But somehow you have to know and be convinced that Jesus is alive and that you can experience him, that you can have him in the here and in the now.
She had what I'm calling, get this now, Church, a chamber experience. Jesus had done something in her life, in her, or around her. Jesus had done something whereby she got activated.
In other words, she didn't just believe in a religion, but she had an experience. Now again, your experience may have happened to you many years ago, even when you were a child, but somehow God proved himself to you. And once you know, beloved ones, that God is alive, that he's real, that will inspire within you and activate within you the faith that's required to seek him.
You see, we read in the Book of Hebrews, those that are gonna please God, get this now, must believe first of all that he is. In other words, unless we believe that God is, and we can experience him, we'll have no motivation to seek him.
We're gonna be dead in the darkness. So, true disciples of Jesus had been marked. They were marked and have been marked and are being marked because somehow Jesus has shown up in their life. I'm not saying that you saw him. But that Jesus made himself known to you.