Hi, my name is Lindy Ann Hopley, founder of Beautiful Witness Ministries and I want to welcome you to God Today. I am so excited to be able to chat on here with you, just a short message to encourage you, to grow in the Lord, to seek Him, and the rest will be added unto you. Amen.
Today I want to talk to you a little bit about God’s perfume. This is so cool – how the Lord has all these different facets to who He is. He is not just King, He is not just Lord and Savior. But He is also a lover. He is also the bridegroom coming for His bride. And I will never forget, in 2011, I went to America – I am from South Africa. It was my first time that far away from home. I didn’t know anyone here, I came as a missionary in faith. To be honest, I was like, “Lord, if you don’t come through for me…this is me stepping out of the water. I either sink or you save me.” You know, I put it all on the line. I had no money. Nothing.
I will never forget my third day in America, I was walking around Rodeo Drive, just window shopping. And I saw this Victoria’s Secret store. We didn’t have one in South Africa at that point. I only saw it in the movies. So I was like, “Hey! It’s that place we always see in the movies!” Instead of going in the underwear section, I ended up in the perfume section. I was like [sniffing], “Whoa! This smells so good, but there is no way I am going to buy perfume with my $300.” That was my budget for my entire 3 month trip to America. By faith. Correct?
Three hundred dollars! On my third day in America, for three months. There was no way I was going to spend my $300 that I had for my entire three-month trip on the third day of this trip. That’s just not going to happen. So smelled it, and was like, “Yay! Window shopping!.” Right?
The next day I was catching a ride on this kind of newspaper, “catch a ride with strangers” list. And I was like, “Jesus, just help me here.” These guys came so late I ended up being so upset with them, to be honest. I was just crying and I said, “God, I came here for worship school and now you’ve left me, you’ve abandoned me. These guys came so late, I am going to miss the conference that I flew in especially two weeks early for. It is expensive to come all the way from Africa.” I am not impressed at all. I’m like, “God, why have you forsaken me?” A typical, young teenage girl. Just like, “Daddy!”
It was so fun because the Lord says He desires for us to worship Him in Spirit and in truth. If you have something like that in your heart and it is not coming up, I bet you have to mature in the Lord. But we can actually bring those things before Him and He can comfort us, and He can console us and give us guidance. But if we don’t bring it to Him, then He can’t do anything with it.
Anyway, I go up on this road trip with these guys who made me so late. They dropped me off at this small, little deserted bus stop – it seemed like. It was in the middle of the night and I have to go buy a ticket. There was no one else there, it was dark. I had two suitcases and a hat on my head. And a handbag here.
And as I am going, everything is falling off, I am crying, and I go to this little bench with a light that is hanging over it, like the movies. Waiting for the bus to the next place where the conference is, which I was pretty sure I had already missed since it was already 7:00 pm by the time I got to the bus stop and I still had to drive an hour. And I was like, “It’s over!”
As I sat at this bus stop, I put my two bags down, and took my hat off, the handbag was already falling off and I put it down. And I am like, [crying] “Jesus!” As I look to my left, on this bench, I kid you not, is a bottle of Victoria’s Secret perfume. And I was just like, “Huh?” I took it, I put it in my pocket, I was like, “[Crying]”. I knew it had been put there by the Lord, an angel, or something, you know? I was 10 hours drive away from where I even had the thought of maybe getting perfume. And the Lord said, “I see you.”
I wanted to read you this fantastic scripture out of the Passion Translation. In Song of Songs 4:10, he says, “How satisfying to me, my equal, my bride. Your love is my finest wine, intoxicating and thrilling, and your sweet perfume praises so exotic, so pleasing. Your loving words are like the honeycomb to me. Your tongue releases milk and honey. For, I find the promised land flowing within you. The fragrance of your worshiping love surrounds you with scented robes of white. My darling, my bride, my private paradise.”
I want to tell you today, I don’t know what your relationship is with Jesus, but He is a bridegroom pursuing His bride. This is whether you are female, or male, or whatever. It really doesn’t matter because God says He is coming for His bride. And He has put out all of these love tentacles to pull us back to who we truly are, to who He wants us to walk as. He wants us to know that we are His bride, we are His private paradise. That everything that He has put inside of you is holy, is sacred. And He is so in love with you. And Father, I pray right now that people will encounter you as the lover of their souls. [singing] “Jesus lover of my soul, Jesus I will never let you go”…and He will never let you go. You are his paradise. I want to encourage you to breathe in the fragrance of the Lord knowing He is your perfume and you are His. He delights in you. I hope you were blessed by this message. I am Lindy Ann Hopley. God bless you.