September 12 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading:

Song of Solomon 3:

¹By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
²I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
³The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
⁴It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
⁵I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.
⁶Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?
⁷Behold his bed, which is Solomon's; threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel.
⁸They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.
⁹King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon.
¹⁰He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.
¹¹Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.

Devotional:

As a hangover from an earlier day there are Christian couples even now who enter marriage with a guilt feeling about sex. They cannot rid themselves of the notion that somehow sex is dirty or shameful. This is an attitude from which the Lord wants the Christian to be liberated.

God made the body of the woman with every line and proportion and curve and texture. He made man to delight in each characteristic. This He did to prove a source of delight in marriage. He did it, too, as part of His plan for His creatures to reproduce after their kind. It is not sinful for husband and wife to enjoy each other in a physical way as well as a spiritual way. It is perfectly appropriate for the act of marriage to follow devotions. Sex is a real nourishment for our whole being. Nor is it a sin for us to enjoy the fact that we enjoy one another! God made it to be this way.

The husband and wife should be able to communicate freely to each other any problems in sexual adjustment. We should feel free to pray that God would enable us to enjoy this means of expressing love in a way that is more complete. If it appears necessary, we should not hesitate to seek advice from qualified persons.

The one flesh concept of marriage cannot thrive when the flesh is cheating the flesh, or bristling against the flesh, or tensing up against the flesh. There needs to be in marriage a relaxed peaceful-ness of conscience and a liberation of emotion if God's plan for the man and woman is to be realized!