“Enraptured In Your Love” by Titus Chu

Enraptured in Your Love — Titus Chu
#210 in Songs and Hymns of Life

We invite you to both read and sing through the hymn before reading this post.

This week we come to one of the sweetest and intimate of hymns by brother Titus Chu (written in 1973). Though the song is a just short two verses, the whole is full of contemplations on the theme of love. The tune by Yu Jin beautifully carries us away to such a sweet and intimate enjoyment of our Lord of Love, as if to the mountains of spices mentioned in the Song of Songs (8:14), where we may smell and enjoy all the fragrances of Christ and His love for us.

Verse 1
Enraptured in Your love— how fresh and new!
Infuse me with Your love— sweeter, fresher than dew!
Your love (embrace me close) does forward guide;
I revel in Your love, on Your breast abide.
How I yearn, O Lord, to delight in love,
By Your love o’ershadow me.
A banner over me: Your love— Yourself,
For Your love and Yourself are one.

Verse 1 starts with such a strong word: enraptured. The Lord Jesus and His love are so enrapturing, so delightful, so precious, so enthralling. It is all too true that we are often enraptured by so many other things: a good movie or book, an exciting sports match, having fun with friends or family, many others. Though it may not be wrong to enjoy these other things, have we had experiences of being enraptured with Jesus? Have we tasted and seen how good He is? Doesn’t He just fill us with such an inexpressible joy—so much more than anything else could? With every touch we have with Jesus, there is something so fresh and so new, yet it springs from eternity!

The rest of verse 1 is so full of intimate pictures of love. Being infused with love, being embraced, enjoying this love more and more, laying on Jesus’ breast sweetly like the Apostle John, yearning for even more experiences of this powerful, overshadowing love. So sweet and wonderful! At the end of the verse we see a key that unlocks so many sweet experiences of love—that our God is love, that He and His love are one. Therefore all these loving experiences we have, are deepening experiences of all that God is.

Verse 2
You are my dearest One, my only Love.
Yes, Lord, now You alone are the object of love.
If You redemption give and only love,
I know my heart won’t be fully satisfied.
How I yearn, dear Lord, Your own self to gain,
For I know it’s only You.
It’s You that I pursue, and You are love;
My sole Treasure You are to me.

Verse 2 continues this sweet sentiment. Oh Jesus Christ can be our dearest One! Our only Love! Our first and best Love! Have we tasted and enjoyed this kind of relationship that we can have with God? Oh, He is so good, so sweet! The nearest One and the dearest One to us!

And yet the thought continues and advances in this verse: we must realize that God is the Object of our love, that is, it is He Himself that we are loving. He’s a Person. He is not some unknowable blob somewhere, or some vague feeling or idea. All of the sweet, loving sentiments that we feel are directed at God Himself. The verse next makes a consequent strong statement: if God were to only give us redemption and love, though these are two items that we desperately need, we know that we would feel like there is something lacking, something not complete with mere things, as good as they might be. What truly and fully satisfies our hearts is God Himself. He is the Object. We want to love Him for Himself, not the gifts that He can give.

This is something that might be outside our thought or what others may think about God and His love. It is one reason why this hymn is so special. This can be likened to a marriage: if the husband loves the wife and merely gives her a nice house and comfortable living but does not give himself to her, how empty that marriage would be! It is the same with God. He will indeed take care of our needs, but He most deeply desires to share Himself with us. How empty our Christian lives would be if we just knew abstractly that Jesus loved us and died for us, and that one day sometime in the distant future we’ll live forever! Where would be the love story? The romance? With a beginning and an end, where would the glorious middle be? Praise the Lord that we have God Himself, His very Person; we can pursue, press on, strive to gain and know this lovely One, our loving Christ.

In love, our God wants to give us His very best, which is nothing less than Himself. We can enjoy Him, explore Him, plumb His depths, and scale His heights! We can see more and more how wonderful and glorious Christ is! May the Lord become (and stay!) such a priceless Treasure to us all our days, as we seek Him, lay hold of Him, and have so many more experiences of all that He is.

Have you had a recent experience of being enraptured in the Lord and His love? Please describe it. How have you felt the Lord’s loving embrace in the past few weeks? How has the Lord shown you that He is (or can/should be) your dearest One? Please leave a response below for the encouragement of other readers.