Rabbi Schneider - What God Wants From You?

TOPICS: Mysteries of the Song of Songs

As we come to the portion of scripture that I'm gonna be focusing on today, what we have seen develop is this, the Shulamite bride came into a brand new experience with God. Her heart was opened. She had an emotional encounter with Him and it blessed her so completely, that she said, "I forever want to be with You. I want to make my life about You alone. Draw me to Yourself and let us run life together. You are my portion in this world". She was totally engaged in a passionate, fiery love for her bridegroom. Yet as time went on, she found herself feeling disconnected from him. And I applied that last week to our lives; that often times in our first journey with the Lord, in our early days of walking with God, those days when we first experience salvation, it felt like God was so close to us.

But somehow for many of us, as time went on we got to a place where we felt like we ran into a dry spell, where we didn't feel as emotionally engaged or connected to the Spirit as we first were when we first came to know Him. And it's at that juncture that we find ourselves in today, where the Shulamite bride, after having this great experience where she said, "The king had brought me into his chamber", where her heart was so open to His love where she experienced Him in such a powerful rich way. She went from that, not long afterwards to calling out to Him and saying, "Where are you"? And Jesus spoke to her and He said, "If you do not know most beautiful amongst women, let Me tell you".

And that's where I left off last week. We're in chapter 1, verse number 8. And the first thing that He told her, was that she needs to be in fellowship with His other children. And so He says, "If you yourself do not know, most beautiful among women," He says, number one do this. You want to be close to Me, you want to feel more engaged with My Spirit, He said do this, "Go forth on the trail of the flock". And I made application there, again, last week. We need to be in fellowship with the rest of God's children. Get in a Bible study. If you're home bound, invite people over to your home to have fellowship with. If you, pray with people on the phone if you need to. If you have an able body, find a fellowship somewhere to be engaged with; because the truth is, our relationship with God is not just about Him and us.

There's so many people today, it's becoming an epidemic, where they say, "I'm spiritual". And what they mean by that, is their spirituality is just about themselves and God. But what they don't realize is, that a lot of their spirituality is not really God, it's just being self absorbed; because true spirituality in the kingdom is not meant to be lived alone. You see the life that we've been called into is life in the kingdom. The kingdom is part of the ministry of the King and His people. In other words, a kingdom involves not just God and one person. It involves God and all His people. As I said last week, this is why the letters of Paul were not written to specific people, so much as they were written to bodies of believers, to the church at Ephesus, to the church at Thessalonica, to the church at Corinth. And it's about a body, "One's an arm, one's a leg," Paul says, "one's an ear".

We all play a different part to serve each other. And so we can't lead the life of the kingdom alone. It just doesn't work, because we're called number one, to receive God's Spirit through the lives of the rest of His children. You impart something to me and then I impart something to you. We're part of a body. So the first thing He tells the Shulamite bride here, listen, "You're feeling disconnected. You need to understand to feel My presence all the time, you need to be involved with the rest of My people. Get connected to a community".

So I want to challenge you today, in whatever way you're able to depending on your health status, your age, etc., whatever way you're able to see out a community. If you think you can do it alone, you're gonna miss so much of not only what God wants to do in you, but what God wants to do through you; because He's given each of us a gift and somehow He wants us to be able to use our gift to be a blessing to somebody else. Listen, people think that to be rich you have to possess a lot of things, but there's a lot of people that possess a lot of things, that are completely bankrupt in their soul. I mean we could have stories, tell stories of people that were so rich and they lived in multi, you know, million dollar mansions and they spent all their time in their bedroom laying in bed, or they spent all their time in isolation in their own mansion, totally oppressed, totally afflicted in their mind and soul. Why? Because they were alone.

You see, the person that's rich, hear me, the person that's rich is not the person that possess everything. The person that's rich is the person that gives the most. Jesus said, "It's better to give than to receive". The point that I'm making is Jesus said to this woman that wasn't experiencing God at this stage in her journey the way that she wanted to, He gave her a corrective measure to get involved in the community, to get with His flock. And one of the reasons He wanted her there, is so that she could give. You see the person that is rich is the person that gives. God has created us to be a blessing to other people. Think about it, God created you and I not to just accumulate things for our self. That is a complete defiled mentality. God created us to give. "God so loved the world that He gave. Greater is he that gives than he that receives".

And so it's important if you and I are to live a life in the spirit, to feel connected, to feel close to Jesus, is to be part of a community where we can add something. You may not think that what you add is much, but believe me, it is. And if you just use the gifts and the talents, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to say, "Well I have the gift of this, or I have the gift of this". Just be yourself and just look to give, just look to be a blessing. It's a real strong point, beloved one. I know it's simple and it may not even seem you know that exciting to you, but it's powerful. And we need to connect our self to other believers and look for ways to be a blessing. And when we do that, the Spirit of God will flow through us and in addition we'll also be receiving charge in our life, spiritual charge, from those other people that we're connected to.

So let's continue on. The first thing He says, "Go forth on the trail of the flock". Secondly He says this, which connects to what I just said. He said, "And pasture your young goats". This has to do with what I was just speaking about. It has to do with service. And so pasturing is serving. It's taking care of people. Remember Peter, when Peter met Jesus after Jesus had risen from the dead and Jesus said to Peter three times, "Peter do you love me"? And Peter said, "Lord You know I love You". And Jesus said what to Peter? "Well Peter if you love Me," He said, "Pasture My people, tend My lambs". And the same is true for you and I today. To walk with Jesus, to walk close with Him, to walk arm in arm with Him, we have to be serving people, we have to be pasturing people.

You might say, "Well I'm not a pastor". And I know for many of you, you're not standing in the office of a pastor. But let me ask you this, is there some little one that you can help? Jesus said, "Tend to My lambs. Pasture my little ones". Is there a grandchild you could pasture in the things of the Lord? My wife Cynthia, that many of you know by television, you know how she came to the Lord? Through her grandmother. Her grandmother told her about Jesus. Her grandmother was her foundation of faith. Her grandmother is long gone, but that simple childlike way that Cynthia's grandmother shared Jesus with her, brought Cynthia a faith and brought her into the kingdom. So I'm saying to you, yes I know that most of you, you're not standing in the office of a pastor. You don't pastor a congregation, but is there somebody that you can minister to? Is there somebody that you can encourage?

Look for somebody. I promise you, God will give you somebody to minister to, somebody to be a blessing to. Jesus said to the Shulamite bride, "If you want to feel close to Me, you've got to pasture somebody". You've got to serve somebody. I know that some of you think, "Well I'm not spiritually mature. I don't know the Bible that well". You know what? Do the best you can. God will use you and He'll bless you and you'll be happy for it. And then finally the third thing He says to her is this, He said, "Do it among the shepherds". He said, "Do this, pasture your young goats by the tents of the shepherds". And this simply means this, is that don't just be someone that rebels against all authority.

You know don't be someone who criticizes all the, you know there's so many people that go to church and the first thing they do after the message, you've heard this before, is that you know they get in the car and they you know tear down something about the service, complain about something the pastor said. Beloved, watch your mouth. Watch your mouth. I know there's a lot of imperfection in the world. I know there's a lot of imperfection in the church. I know there's a lot of imperfection with our leaders. I know it. It's frustrating. But you know what? It doesn't discount the fact that the Lord still works through authority, because without authority everything is chaos. God uses authority to bring order into chaos. So we have to conduct our lives recognizing that God works through the principle of authority. Do it beloved, under the shepherd of your local community.

Let's continue on. I love this next section, as we go now to chapter number 2. Hear the Word of God. Now I know it's confusing to separate which verse is aligning with which speaker, because we have two different speakers here. We have the king, who is a shadow of Father God to us through Yeshua and then we also have the Shulamite bride, who's a shadow of you and I. And the verses don't identify who's speaking here. Is it Father God that's speaking or is it the Shulamite bride, is it the church that's speaking? So I'm gonna try to make sense of this for you. You might even want to take some notes.

Let's begin chapter 2, verse 1. The Shulamite bride says, "I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys". It's interesting in conjunction with this verse, notice what she said in verse number 12 of chapter number 1. "While the king was at his table, my perfume gave forth its fragrance". What does this mean? She knew, beloved, she was beautiful to God and as she became comfortable and confident with God's love for her, her heart began to open to Him and the beauty that was in her began to come out.

I know for example in my relationship with Cynthia, as I have grown and got more confident in myself and matured over the years, I've been able to love her more and more and more. And as I love Cynthia more, she opens up to me more and more and more of her personality comes out and more of her inner beauty comes up. That's what she experienced here. She said, "While the king was at his table my perfume sprung forth". And then she said, "I am the rose," she said, "I am the lily of the valley". You're beautiful to the Lord. God wants you to know this about your self. And you know what? Not only did she say it about herself, but the next thing that happens in the story is Jesus affirms it about her.

Notice what Yeshua says back to her. "Like a lily among the thorns, so is my darling among the maidens". In other words, He was saying, "You are special. You stand out to me". And you too beloved one, whether you're a man or a woman, you stand out to the Lord. It's hard for us to understand how each one of us is so unique, so special, so different, but we are. And one day, beloved, we're gonna fully know it. I want to encourage you, as much as possible, have confidence in this and walk this way.

You know often times I see people that physically may not be that attractive, but because of the confidence they have in who they are, because some how they've been loved and as a result of knowing what it means to be loved, they have confidence. And even though physically, if you just looked at them completely in black and white; in other words, just physical appearance, nothing else, there's nothing attractive about them. But because of the confidence they have, because they've been loved and have confidence in that love and who that love has identified them to be, because they walk in that confidence their physical appearance is so enhanced. They look like really attractive people. It's the beauty, beloved, of love, of a God confidence.

So I want to encourage you, like a Shulamite bride, have God confidence. Listen what she said about her self, "I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys". She wasn't boasting. Jesus said back to her, "Like a lily among the thorns, so is my darling among the maidens". I want to encourage you, have God confidence. Sometimes, I know this is true of me, we're so afraid of thinking more highly of our self than we ought to, we're so afraid of thinking something good about our self, because we're afraid it might be prideful; that in doing that sometimes, we don't let in the good things that God wants us to let in. Sometimes I'll have good thoughts about myself, but I'll be afraid to let them in, because I'll think, "Lord I don't know if that's me or the devil and I'm afraid if I'm letting a good thought in about myself that's not from You, that I'm gonna end up being in pride and then You're gonna have to end up judging me, correcting me and disciplining me for it".

So I've been really hesitant to allow myself to think good thoughts about myself. But the Lord is showing me, "No, some of the thoughts that you're thinking about your self, that are good thoughts, that you're afraid are the devil, are actually thoughts that I want you to receive from Me. I want to affirm you and I want you to agree with My affirmation". Listen what Jesus said to her once again. She had a thought about her self, "I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys". Then Yeshua affirmed her. "So is my darling among the maidens, like a lily among the thorns, so is my darling among the maidens". I want to encourage you and I beloved. Let's believe the good things about ourselves that Father wants us to believe.

Father help us to be able to discern when we're having thoughts about our self that You want us to affirm, like the Shulamite bride that had a heart that opened up to You when she knew Your love for her and she began to speak positively about her self. Help us Father God to affirm the good things about our self that You want us to affirm. Father some of us have lived in an atmosphere where there's been so much condemnation, where it seems unnatural to think a good thought about our self, or we're so afraid of being in pride, that we don't want to let any good thoughts in. Father we break off every lie of the enemy. Help us Father God to affirm of our self those thoughts of beauty, those thoughts of love.

Father, there are men, those thoughts of masculinity. If they're women, those thoughts of femininity. Help us Father to agree with You in what You're saying about us. And Father we ask You to help us separate what is good and pure and true from that which is from the enemy, so that we don't find ourselves agreeing with something that's not from You. We don't want to agree with the devil in pride, but Father I believe that many are like me. There's things that You want us to say about ourselves to ourselves in Your love. But we're afraid that we might be prideful in doing so. Father God help us to enter in to the fullness of what You have for us.

Well, I hope that made sense there. I just want you to understand the God confidence that the Shulamite bride had. You and I need to have God confidence. We need to know we are beautiful, we need to know we're powerful. And so she says, "Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste". What I want you to get here, is that she's really enjoying the company of God. She said, "In his shade I took great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste". She's just enjoying the security of having Father's covering over her life, of being affirmed in her life. And she's just laying down, listen, she's just enjoying God.

Have you ever had a time in your life, where you're just able to enjoy God? I mean are you able at times just to put beautiful worship music on and just lay down on a couch and just let your self just enjoy God, just enjoy feeling His presence, just enjoy worshiping Him? That's what's going on here. She's just taking joy in her relationship. Listen again. She says to him, "In his shade," speaking of the Lord, "I took great delight and sat down". She's not doing anything, just enjoying. "And his fruit was sweet to my taste. He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love". She was confident that she was protected.

Notice she said there, as we close today, that as she was being secure in His love, enjoying it, she made the declaration, "His banner over me is love". A banner is like a covering, it's like a victory. She knew that she was secure and protected by the love of God. And I want to encourage you today, beloved one, to know that the banner over your life by Hashem, by Father God through His Son Yeshua, there's a banner over your life of love. Jesus said, "I am with you always and nothing shall by any means hurt you". I want you to know God has got your back. There's nothing that you need to be afraid of. The number of hairs, beloved one, on your head are numbered. Fear nothing, because there's a banner of victory over your life and that banner is love.