The King's Daughter—Part 5

... the worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love—Henry Scougal—The Life of God in the Soul of Man
Image by Ramona Havranek

What We Believe Matters

This series of articles was inspired by my journey of discovering God's eternal love, which set me free. This piece discusses how God considers His daughters precious and valuable. I wrote and arranged these lessons for a women's conference our church hosted. This study centers on the following portion of Scripture.

Kings' daughters are among Your honorable women;
At Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir.
Listen, O daughter,
Consider and incline your ear;
Forget your own people also, and your father's house;
So the King will greatly desire your beauty;
Because He is your Lord, worship Him.
And the daughter of Tyre will come with a gift;
The rich among the people will seek your favor.
The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace
Her clothing is woven with gold.
She shall be brought to the King in robes of many colors;
The virgins, her companions who follow her, shall be brought to You.
With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought;
They shall enter the King’s palace.

— Psalm 45:9-15

Sometimes, one of the most significant challenges for women is believing they are loved. Many of us have spent much of our lives trying to convince ourselves we are truly loved through the drama of our relationships.

On this leg of my journey, I have concluded that true, eternal, everlasting love can only be realized through a relationship with our Father in Heaven through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Some of us have entered into that relationship but have not truly understood our position as the King's daughters or fully grasped the emotional depth of His love. This understanding is God's will in Christ Jesus.

... that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

— Ephesians 3:17

This lesson will take an in-depth look at worship and how who and what we worship determines the esteem we receive and experience.

Hosea and Gomer

Who Is In Control?

Worship is not only thanking, praising, and singing to the Lord. Although worship includes these elements, it also includes these questions:

Who have we given the privilege of assigning our value and worth?
Who or what dictates our conclusions about life and ourselves?
Whose voice do we incline our ear to?
Whose opinion do we most consider?
What thoughts, ideas, and experiences have we held in such high regard that they have exalted themselves above what God's word says about us?

The answers to these questions will reveal who or what you worship.

Gomer, the prophet Hosea's unfaithful wife, gives us a Biblical example of what we sometimes do in our desperation and need:

... she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
Who give me my bread and my water (food - body inside),
My wool and my linen ( clothing - body outside),
My oil and my drink (soul considerations).’

... For she did not know
That I gave her grain, new wine, and oil,
And multiplied her silver and gold
Which they prepared for Baal.

— Hosea 2:5,8

Gomer's name means "complete" and "no deficiency," according to Strong's Concordance. Gomer's core desire was most likely to feel complete and satisfied, but she did not.

A medical condition called "Pica" can illustrate this spiritual matter physically. People with Pica have nutrient deficiencies that cause them to crave non-nutritive substances such as laundry soap, paint, or even dirt. Their need is legitimate, but the sources they use to get nutrients can be deadly.

The places we go to satisfy our souls apart from God in our spiritual Pica would be considered our other lovers and can be equally deadly to our spiritual and natural lives.

The things Gomer (Hosea's wife) sought represent temporary satisfaction in her design and making. God says, "Because she did not know I gave her what she needed."

grain (physical needs)
new wine (soul needs)
oil (spiritual needs)

Notice that Gomer makes herself her own God when she says, "I will." Sometimes we want to be in the driver's seat. None of us want to be perceived as controlling, yet that is what we do when we entrust ourselves to our own conclusions and decisions. We want to be our own gods because we do not trust that He is enough or that He will do it to our satisfaction. We cannot obtain eternal happiness in our own ways.

If we are waiting for our husbands to convince us that we are valuable, for our careers to shout our praises, for our friends to affirm our sense of belonging, or for our circumstances to determine our comfort level, we will surely be disappointed. God wishes to be the most influential factor in our lives. He wants to shape, form, and mold our self-image through His eyes and His thoughts.

As followers of Jesus, we must look beyond people, things, and circumstances to meet our needs. All of these are unstable and inadequate, and if we depend on them, we will fail. Moving in the direction of the flesh will not meet our needs; at best, it can only provide a deceptive facade of security and significance. Instead, we must dare to believe that if everything else is taken away, our God is enough. This does not minimize the fact that there will be pain when relationships break down and when failure and rejection occur. These things are painful, but they will not destroy us when we derive our self-image from God rather than people. From an ultimate standpoint, we are loved, we are significant, and we are competent, but only in Him and only in the plan to which He calls us.

— Kenneth Boa, "Conformed to His Image"

Our sense of security and belonging is found in God alone, where those senses cannot be manipulated by others' thoughts, opinions, and behaviors. The devil can lead us around by the nose if our satisfaction depends on others. He cannot do that when our eyes are firmly fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. (Heb 12:2)

For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the LORD made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before Him;
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

Give to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
Give to the LORD glory and strength.
Give to the LORD the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts.
Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.

— Psalm 96:4-9

The word "glory' in this verse means "weighty." How much weight do we give the living words God speaks to our hearts, compared with the other messages we have allowed to carry more weight than God's words?

He is asking us to place Him and His thoughts toward us on the scales of our consideration and let His thoughts tip the scales in favor of the weightiness of His love for us.

This passage says to fear Him. To fear Him means to be so enamored with Him that we fear no other. We live in a culture where we measure ourselves and compare ourselves with others. Our greatest fear is public humiliation rather than fearing or caring what God thinks of us.

We can consider these "other gods." How much time do we spend fashioning and forming thoughts and fantasies about things or situations we think will satisfy? The Old Testament offers a literal example of constructing idols to suit people's needs, which seems ridiculous. Still, we do the same thing in our hearts when we imagine someone or something else coming to our rescue.

We are most satisfied when we seek God's pleasure above our own, and we gradually become conformed to what we most love and admire."
— Kenneth Boa, "Conformed to His Image"

Worship Him

Fuchsia Pickett, in her book "Worship Him," quotes:

"The Old English spelling of the word (worship) is worthship, which aptly conveys the idea that the one to whom we show honor has worth. Worship is not an arrogant demand of God toward His creatures: it is rather the natural response from grateful hearts that comprehend the infinite worthship of God."

God does not ask us to give Him glory and strength because He lacks them, nor does He ask us to boost His ego so He can feel better about Himself because of our adoration. He asks us to give Him glory and strength in our souls so that He may show Himself strong on our behalf. He must have our permission to do so. When our souls acknowledge these qualities and worship Him, He is granted permission to bear the weight of His goodness on our hearts, souls, and lives. We give Him room to move.

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.
— 2 Chronicles 16:9

Sometimes, we give God only minutes to convince us of His truths. In contrast, we give our thoughts free rein for hours in our imaginations, replaying and rehearsing the wrongs committed against us, our misdeeds, and our limited conclusions about what it all means for us. He asks us to devote the same amount of energy, time, and devotion to His thoughts. He desires to be Lord and have a dominant influence over our lives, feelings, actions, and reactions based on truth and His infinite wisdom and understanding.

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters; And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine (joy and peace) and milk (nurture and satisfaction)
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money on what is not bread,
And your wages on what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Incline your ear, and come to Me.
Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you
— The sure mercies of David.

— Isaiah 55:1-3

How do we buy this wine (joy and peace) and milk (nurture and satisfaction) without money?

"Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Incline your ear, and come to Me."

— Isaiah 55:2

My Bible Study teacher of twenty years, Jean Karau, once told us that we buy these things with our ears and attention. These listening keywords are the exact keywords used in the Psalm 45 passage we are studying.

What or who we choose to listen to, and who we decide to run to, is profoundly relevant to grasping what we are looking for. It is more about who we are looking for, because once we find God, we discover what we are looking for.

Our biggest problem is that it must not be so if we aren't feeling it. Feelings are important, but they were never intended to sit on the throne of our hearts and dictate or govern every thought, decision, and behavior. Nor were our feelings intended to decide what is true or false. They simply indicate what is going on in our hearts.

Let me illustrate the purpose and position of our emotions through the Old Testament Tabernacle, a type and picture of us as God's temple and of His intentions for how He can dwell there. Of course, Jesus is our first example of how this works, and everything in the Tabernacle speaks of Him, but I would like to look at it from a personal perspective.

The Tabernacle arrangement of furniture as it Relates to Our Emotions

Before the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies (where God dwells), he had to make a few pit stops. First and foremost was the outer court, where rituals representing the forgiveness of sin took place. The first step was establishing a relationship with Christ through the forgiveness of sin through Christ's sacrifice.

Next, the High Priest entered the Holy Place, where three significant pieces of furniture stood. The first was the table of bread, representing the will. Next was the lampstand, representing the mind, and lastly the altar of incense, representing emotions. Our soul consists of three parts—the mind, the will, and the emotions.

The High Priest was instructed to visit these tables in a specific order. Visiting the table of bread (the will) indicates that we are to make a decision first. Who are we going to follow? Whom will we listen to? Next, he visited the lampstand, representing the mind, meaning that once we decide, we order our thoughts accordingly. Lastly, before entering into God's presence, was the altar of incense (emotions), suggesting that what we have decided and thought can now be responded to. Emotions are shaped by the decisions and thought processes that accompany them.

Most of us have run the protocol backward. We visit the altar of incense (emotions) first, let our minds be persuaded by our feelings, and then make foolish decisions based on them. It is backward, for sure. Consulting our feelings for the truth about life is dangerous.

Our feelings are beautiful and precious, but they are not reliable guides. God gave them to us so we might respond to the truth, not so they would dictate it. We should view our negative feelings as indicators that a part of our hearts remains unsurrendered to the dictates of His love. This is where our cooperation takes place.

Shake yourself from the dust, arise;
Sit down, O Jerusalem!
Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck,
O captive daughter of Zion!

— Isaiah 52:2

We have learned to see ourselves as victims, and before knowing Jesus, we were indeed victims of our circumstances and of the enemy who hates us. In her book Captivating, Stasi Eldredge alludes to the enemy's desire to destroy us from birth because we represent the beauty of God, which he once had, and because he knows the power we contain under the Lordship of Jesus. God asks us to rise out of the dust, take our positions as daughters of the King, and no longer remain victims.

The word "dust" symbolizes humiliation, feelings of insignificance, inferiority, and rejection. The prophet tells us to rise from these things, shake them off, and sit in our positions. Our position and privilege as a king's daughter is one of authority.

Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
— Luke 10:19

He has given us His name.

If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
— John 14:14

He has given us His Word.

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you ...
— John 15:7

He has given us the power of the Holy Spirit.

... you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you
— Acts 1:8

His Word and Spirit enable us to take every thought captive and bring it under the authority of God's truth.

... casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
— 2 Corinthians 10:5

We do not wage war with human plans and methods. We use God's mighty weapons to knock down strongholds (thought patterns and soul trenches) that keep us from knowing God and His great love.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
— Ephesians 6:12

A Lesson From Esther

In the book of Esther, the evil Haman issues a decree to destroy and annihilate the Jewish people. Similarly, Haman's orders mirror our spiritual enemy's decrees against us.

When "Queen" Esther discovered the evil edict, she sought the Lord through fasting and prayer. Her next step was to expose the enemy. We must reveal the real enemy. It is not flesh and blood.

Esther tried to change the decree but couldn't because it was already published and delivered. Once the king decreed something, it could not be changed. However, the king told her that she had the authority to issue a new decree to counteract the original. The people could now fight for their rightful positions by writing a new law. Likewise, through Jesus, a new law has been published, and we have the right to secure our positions through our relationship with Christ; we are new creatures in Him and destined for new and better futures. We must seek the Lord, expose the enemy, and issue the new decrees. Hallelujah!!

As we wrap up this section on worship, I want to share a little insight about past pain and unforgiveness. Unforgiveness can be a form of worship, believe it or not. Unforgiveness grants someone or an event the privilege of occupying territory in our soul. The first seeds of hatred will eventually take root in bitterness, wrapping tendrils of hostile venom around every corner of our soul and creating a path for it to seep into our conversations, attitudes, and behavior. It will affect all we do and think, and inevitably, we will share it with whomever we encounter.

... looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled ...
— Hebrews 12:15

It works the same way as love is supposed to. God wants His love to occupy the territory of our soul so that it fills every corner of our being. He wants His love to seep into our conversations, attitudes, and behaviors and affect everything we do and think. He wants the result to be that we inevitably share it with whomever we encounter. It all comes down to who we worship.

In Conclusion, it is normal to feel pain when someone injures us. It turns to worship when we exalt that person's power to influence how we think, behave, and feel about ourselves. Not to mention, we become what we behold most intently. We become what we worship. (Psalm 135:18)

Events in our lives may have shaken us to the core. God allows us to pour our hearts and pain out before Him. He allows time to grieve and process things. But then He asks what we will do with it. We must ask ourselves: Will we carry a pack full of lies for the rest of our lives, or will we take our pain to the master physician, seek His healing, and apply His truths to our souls?