For the first time in my walk with the Lord, I am seeing the Bride, the Church in a new light. I feel as though I am beginning to fall in love with the Bride as God is in love with her. Every other time God showed me that he was in love with his Bride, I would be blown away at the thought that God could be in love with me and all I wanted to do was reciprocate that love back to Him. But I am realizing that I have been asking God for his heart, for him to show me what he cares about and what he desires and then just stopping. After he’d show me, I was so in awe of him that it was like I forgot why I asked to see it! The reason I want his heart is so that I can have the same heart. The reason I want to know what he loves and what makes him cry is because I want to love with him and cry with him.
Now that I have realized that, when he shows me his heart for his Bride, I am no longer only thanking him and sitting in that place of knowing his love for me. I am now seeing his love for his Bride and I am falling in love too! And one of my biggest desires is for the Bride all over the world, to understand her identity and her inheritance. I want to see her as a whole, walking in the truth of her beloved’s love for her.
This is something I wrote down in my journal as I meditated on Isaiah 43:
Isaiah 43:1-4
But now thus says the LORD,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not
overwhelm you;
When you walk through fire you shall
not be burned
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my eyes,
and honored, and I love you,
I give men in return for you,
peoples in exchange for your life.”
When will we get it? When will we as the Bride truly believe what you say about us? Were you serious when you said I could walk through fire and not be burned? Is it all a metaphor? Or is there real power behind what you say about me? When will we accept the fact that we are precious in your eyes, that we are honored! And that you truly love us and it’s because you love us like this that we can do ANYTHING! There is no such thing as impossible – because my God is a god of the impossible. There are no limits anymore to what we can accomplish and where we can go in the spirit! NOTHING is too far, too deep, out of reach. Everything you have, Jesus, you’ve given to the Bride and empowered her! Because she is yours, because you’ve called her by name and because you love her enough to claim her as your own.
When will I truly believe? When my faith is tested and strengthened. When you prove your nature and faithfulness in the midst of the fire. When there is no other hope for salvation, for life but in you Jesus, my Savior! The lover of my soul. You are so enamored by me and you enjoy me and like me, trusting me with your kingdom, with your heart. I am so in love with my God! Because you first loved me!
