Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
– Song of Solomon 8:6–7
Oh, I love these two verses that really summarize so much of what we see in Song of Solomon… The power and the strength, and the beauty and the value, the worth of love, of love according to God, certainly of God’s love for us. And then, the way God calls us to love one another, specifically in Song of Solomon, in marriage. Oh, the power of love, the beauty and strength of love in marriage is intended to be a picture of Jesus’ love for us. That’s what Ephesians 5 makes clear, that God has designed marriage to be a display of his love in the world.
Song of Solomon 8:6–7 challenges marriages to be a display of the love of God.
So I want to lead us to pray for marriages, our marriages, others’ marriages that display God’s love for the world, that show what it looks like for Jesus to love his church, in the way a husband loves and lays down his life for his wife, and for wives to love their husbands in a way that show what it looks like for the church to love Jesus, for us to pray for this picture of the gospel in marriages, our marriages, others’ marriages.
At the same time, for us to pray that we would enjoy God’s love for us to the full, that we would treasure his love for us, and that we would live in a way that reflects his love for others, the beauty, the strength, the power of his love for others through our lives, just like the two greatest commandments Jesus gives us, say to do.
Song of Solomon 8:6–7 reminds us marriage is supposed to be a reflection of God’s love.
So, God, we praise you for love. We praise you as love. You are love. You are perfect love. You’re infinite love. God, we praise you for your love for us, for the beauty, the power, the strength of your love for us, that you sent Jesus to die on a cross for us. That Jesus, you’d lay down your life for us. We are made for a relationship with you marked by love, enjoyment of your love for us, and loving you with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. God, we pray that love would define our lives, that we would love you with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and we would love others as a reflection of your love for us, that we would abide in your love for us, and then show and spread your love for others.
God, we pray for lives marked by love. And we pray for marriages marked by the beauty and power and strength of love that we see described here in Song of Solomon. All over this book and in these two verses, God, we pray the power and the beauty and the strength of love, the picture of the gospel and your love for us would be evident in our marriages and the way we love each other as husbands and wives. God, we pray this picture of love would be evident in others’ marriages and the way other husbands and wives love each other.
Prayer for the Worodougou People
Lord, we pray for the spread of the gospel through faithful biblical marriages… Through faithful biblical pictures of love in marriage between husbands and wives.
God, we want all people to see and to know and to experience your love in Jesus. God, help us to love others around us today… To lead others to your love in Jesus, to speak the gospel with boldness today. Lord, we pray for people around the world who’ve never heard of your love in Jesus. God, for the Worodougou people of Côte d’Ivoire. God, 132,000 of them… Hardly any followers just in this tribe, most never having heard the good news of your love in Jesus. Lord, we pray for the Worodougou people to be reached with your love… For all the people groups of the world to be reached with your love. And for us as your people to live with love for them… To spread the gospel to them with the time, resources, finances, everything, gifts you’ve given to us, and opportunities we have.
God, we pray that you would help us to spread your love in the world… Even as we reflect your love in our lives, our marriages, and our relationships with people in the church… With people who don’t know you, and God, all of this as we enjoy your love for us. We pray all this according to your Word in Song of Solomon 8:6–7. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
