IN CHRIST "ALL ARE THE ROSE OF SHARON"

Through the night I woke hearing my granddaughter speaking in tongues and thanked the Lord for blessing her.  I was dozing back to sleep and then heard the words "ALL ARE THE ROSE OF SHARON" and the feeling of  happiness and being loved, knowing that we all are His beloved.  I then thought was this an interpretation of what my granddaughter spoke in the Spirit.  

I like how Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary explains Song of Solomon 2:  Believers are beautiful, as clothed in the righteousness of Christ; and fragrant, as adorned with the graces of his Spirit; and they thrive under the refreshing beams of the Sun of righteousness. The lily is a very noble plant in the East; it grows to a considerable height, but has a weak stem. The church is weak in herself, yet is strong in Him that supports her. The wicked, the daughters of this world, who have no love to Christ, are as thorns, worthless and useless, noxious and hurtful. Corruptions are thorns in the flesh; but the lily now among thorns, shall be transplanted into that paradise where there is no brier or thorn. The world is a barren tree to the soul; but Christ is a fruitful one. And when poor souls are parched with convictions of sin, with the terrors of the law, or the troubles of this world, weary and heavy laden, they may find rest in Christ. It is not enough to pass by this shadow, but we must sit down under it. Believers have tasted that the Lord Jesus is gracious; his fruits are all the precious privileges of the new covenant, purchased by his blood, and communicated by his Spirit; promises are sweet to a believer, and precepts also. Pardons are sweet, and peace of conscience sweet. If our mouths are out of taste for the pleasures of sin, Divine consolations will be sweet to us. Christ brings the soul to seek and to find comforts through his ordinances, which are as a banqueting-house where his saints feast with him. The love of Christ, manifested by his death, and by his word, is the banner he displays, and believers resort to it. How much better is it with the soul when sick from love to Christ, than when surfeited with the love of this world! And though Christ seemed to have withdrawn, yet he was even then a very present help. All his saints are in his hand, which tenderly holds their aching heads. Finding Christ thus nigh to her, the soul is in great care that her communion with him is not interrupted. We easily grieve the Spirit by wrong tempers. Let those who have comfort, fear sinning it away.  

Clear directions are given in the discovery of covenant blessings, “Follow in the footsteps of the flock” (1:8). Footsteps here is literally “heelprints,” and may be an allusion to Jacob, the national father whose name connotes “a heel.” Jacob’s shepherd role and his lifelong struggle for the blessing of God and man are cited as the biblical norm for God’s people (Hos. 12:3–6, 12, 13). He was born grasping his brother’s heel, a congenital manipulator. He was “disjointed” with deception at the core of his being as illustrated by his limp at Mahanaim (Gen. 32). He was forced to live outside the land under the threat of an angry brother. He returned to the land after twenty years with a faulty family foundation. Deception, lack of love, jealousy, anger, and love for hire (for mandrakes) went into the shaky substructure. The very names of the Twelve Tribes show the need for a new family history.

According to Romans 5:5, “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” On the basis of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is the bond and the binding power of love. The joyous oneness revealed in the Song is inconceivable apart from the Holy Spirit. The very form of the book as song and symbol is especially adapted to the Spirit, for He Himself uses dreams, picture-language, and singing (Acts 2:17; Eph. 5:18, 19). A subtle wordplay based on the divine “breathing” of the breath of life (the Holy Spirit, Ps. 104:29, 30) in Genesis 2:7 seems to surface in the Song. It shows up in the “break” or breathing of the day (2:17; 4:6), in the “blowing” of the wind on the Shulamite’s garden (4:16), and surprisingly in the fragrant scent and fruit of the apple tree (7:8).

Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before You to claim Your promise in 2 Chronicles 7:14 AMP: “If My people, who are called by My name shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

    We are Your people, called by Your name. Thank You for hearing our prayers and moving by Your Spirit in our land. There are famines, earthquakes, floods, natural disasters, and violence occurring. Men’s hearts are failing them because of fear.

    Lord, Your Son, Jesus, spoke of discerning the signs of the times. With the Holy Spirit as our Helper, we are watching and praying.

    We desire to humble ourselves before You, asking that a spirit of humility be released in us. Thank You for quiet and meek spirits, for we know that the meek shall inherit the earth.

    Search us, O God, and know our hearts; try us, and know our thoughts today. See if there be any wicked way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.

    Forgive us our sins of judging inappropriately, complaining about, and criticizing our leaders. Cleanse us with hyssop, and we will be clean; wash us, and we will be whiter than snow. Touch our lips with coals from Your altar that we may pray prayers that avail much for all men and women everywhere.

    Lord, we desire to release rivers of living water for the healing of the nations. In the name of Jesus, amen.  ~Prayers That Avail Much