First Love

UV 1589/10000 First Love
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame
Song of Solomon 8 v 6
When we pair our wounded hearts with the heart of the Lord, we will experience repair and healing of our hearts. Death silences but love hurts. The love of God for mankind whom He created in His own image and the possibility of attaining the infinite is as powerful as death. The Lord has sealed our hearts and our bodies with His own spirit, the Holy Spirit and in so declaring our bodies as His temples, our minds as His pathways and our hearts as His throne room and sanctum sanctorum. We do not have to go on pilgrimage to search or find Him but every morning, every day and night and at all times, we just have to delve deep into our own hearts to find the love of our lives. The human heart thirsts for God as the parched throat thirsts for water, as a baby hungers for milk, as dry ground cries for rain, as a desert traveller longs for the sight of an oasis. Nothing less than God, nothing other than the living God can satisfy this hunger and thirst. In Him, we live and move and exist. In Him we thrive. In Him we find fulfilment and strength. He is Lord as His love enables us to rise from death.
When we are not zealous for God, He is jealous. It is the love of a person for his or her beloved. The beloved cannot be shared with anyone else. “The beloved is mine and I am His and His banner over me is love.” “ His banner over me- this implies what the Lord declares in His Word regarding His own: His banner over us is victory, health, deliverance, justice, mercy, peace and grace. We are His first love and He wants to be our first love- our highest passion, our greatest desire. He won our love by first demonstrating His love by sending His beloved and most precious Son Jesus to embrace death on our behalf. The highest evidence of love is to die for another. He died on the cross to cancel the power of anything that separates us from God, anything that distances us from Him, anything that negatively affects our relationship with Him.

A seal is a sign or symbol of authentication or authority, of testament of covenant. We are sealed as a sign of consecration or dedication. Only documents or articles of highest value or significance are sealed. Once sealed, it cannot be broken except by the authorised person or a higher authority. Our hearts are sealed – our inner being is consecrated and dedicated to our first love. His love enables us to live and to live well and fully. The love relationship with the Lord cannot be broken. It is everlasting and endures past all times, seasons and situations. His love enables us to overcome death and the power of the grave. Our hands are sealed- it implies that just as our being is dedicated and blessed, our doing is dedicated and blessed. Naturally, our “having” will also be blessed. The uni-verse clearly states that love, death, jealousy are not lukewarm or half-hearted but have the intensity of fire. Love, death and jealousy are high energy forces. But love manifests as the fire of the “burning bush” on Mount Sinai- it burns within us without destroying or consuming us. The agape love of God has the power of negating death or declaring it null and void. Righteous jealousy is what sets the boundaries of love and protects it. Love is the highest creative energy and is never destructive. We can demonstrate our love in our being, doing and having. For instance, giving is a way of demonstrating our love in “having”. We love God for what we know of Him. We trust Him for what we do not know. Our faith enables us to prove that love is more powerful than death. In all that we are, do and have, we need to fan our faith and love into full flame.

Prateep V Philip