Over the Memorial Day holiday I was fortunate enough to travel with three dear brothers to the Southeast Blending Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida.  I have been to many conferences before, but I find it impossible to withhold/hoard the large supply of spiritual riches my journey has uncovered.  I will do my best to share the absolute best of the spoils that I have unearthed.

The title of the conference was, ”The Living of a Believer Who Enjoys the Lord in the Body of Christ for the Fulfillment of God’s Eternal Purpose.”   Brother Ron Kangas'’s first message changed my very concept on how I view the Lord.  In the past, I would agree that Christians could be described as pious, humble, or even content.  However, the Lord wants us to enjoy him.  Our Christian life should be full of joy!  A joyless Christian life is one where something foreign is reigning in us and occupying us.  This results in a robbery of the proper enjoyable Christian life.  Song of Solomon says, “Your love is better than wine.”  The wine in this verse represents the things of the world that usurp the Lord and end up sapping us of our enjoyment of him.  We can each personally fill in the blank.  Lord, let your love be more enjoyable than Super Bowl wine.  Lord, let your love be more enjoyable than romance novel wine.  Lord let your love be more enjoyable than Facebook/Twitter/Fantasy Football/Ipod wine.  There are many things today that distract us young people from the pure enjoyment of the Lord.

The second portion of riches that I received from Brother Ron’s speaking was the matter of our divine romance with the Lord.  As depicted in Song of Solomon, the Bible is a holy romance in the most pure and holy sense, of a universal couple- God in Christ as the Bridegroom and God’s redeemed people as the bride.  Were you aware that we are the Lord’s very bride?   This is a matter that many masculine brothers have difficulty grasping, but this comes straight from the Bible.

In this portion the lover of Christ overcomes in four stages.  In the first stage, she overcomes the attraction of the world by being captivated by Christ.  Our love for the Lord needs to be like this.  We need to love the Lord in a personal and affectionate way.  This causes us to experience an enjoyable captivation.

In the second stage, the lover of Christ overcomes the self.  The only way for a lover to overcome the self is by becoming one with the cross of Christ.  We need to live a crucified life.  It is by the power of resurrection that the lover of Christ can take the cross and deny the self.

In the third stage, the lover of Christ overcomes the old creation by living in the ascension of Christ in resurrection after her self has been dealt with on the cross.  In this stage she becomes a new creation!  Out of her inward being flow (4:15),

• A fountain in gardens,
• A well of living water,
• And streams from Lebanon.

The fountain in gardens and well of living water are streams from the resurrection and ascension life.  As lovers of Christ and drinkers of the life-giving Spirit, we should be flowing from our inward being!

In the final stage, the lover of Christ overcomes the flesh, the natural man, the old man, by living within the veil.  In this stage, the overcomer becomes one with God to be His dwelling place.  (6:4 Jerusalem)  We are the very dwelling place of the living God.  When our love for the Lord grows to this stage, we are as beautiful as Tirzah and as lovely as Jerusalem.  Also, the enemy sees us as a terrible army with banners.  Only a life of full dependence upon the Lord will bring us to this stage.

My chief enjoyment of the conference was the matter of our eating, digesting, and assimilating God.  Though this may sound foreign to some, as Christians we are to eat the Lord.

“I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes into Me shall be no means ever thirst.” (John 6:35)

“He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life..” (v.53-59)

The food that is properly eaten, digested, and assimilated by us actually becomes us.  Clearly, the Lord desires that we receive Him into us that He may become our very constitution.

Defined clearly, our food is anything we take into us to satisfy our hunger.  As humans we have many things that we take into our being each day.  It is only when we hunger for these things that they become our food.  In the same way that a mother prevents a child from “spoiling their appetite” before dinner, when we “eat” something throughout our day other than Christ, our very being is taking in this foreign food and spoiling our spiritual nourishment.  This foreign food can even be the cause of our lack of enjoyment of the Lord and proper assimilation and digestion of Him. This is a very serious and convicting matter.  The Lord alone can satisfy our innermost hunger.  It is for this reason that it is of the utmost importance to maintain our spiritual appetite.   Proper spiritual digestion results in a thoroughfare for the food (Christ) to get into every area of our being: our mind, our will, our soul, our heart, and even our imagination and emotion.