Art for Jesus - in Japan

Place me like a seal over Your heart,
like a seal on Your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like the very flame of the Lord.

Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.

- Song of Songs 8:6-7

"Divine Love"

There is a fire of Divine Love.

It is this love which burns the believer and can even cause the believer to suffer. How? Sometimes the absence of the Beloved greatly affects the believer.

Sometimes the believer hears the inward voice of the Beloved calling. It is as a gentle whisper and proceeds from out of the believer's inmost depths.... where the Lord, the Lover, abides. It is this whisper which possesses the believer almost to the point of undoing. The believer realize how near is his Lord and yet he also realizes how much of the soul has not yet been possessed by Him.

This intoxicates the believer and puts an insatiable longing within him... Therefore, it can be said of love: Divine love is as strong as death, for it kills just as surely as death kills.

Take me to You, imprison me, for I,
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.

- John Donne, "Batter My Heart"