Wedding Season

This wedding season has ushered me into a time of preparation that I never quite understood until I began to experience it for myself. There's nothing like it in life. God's been speaking to me specifically about His wedding.. His feast.. His bride. Is she ready to walk down the aisle? Is she spotless? Pure? Worthy to stand before her Groom? The anxiousness one feels in the natural when they are getting married is the same anxiousness we should carry in our spirits when it comes to making ourselves.. the body of Christ.. ready for the return of our Groom.

Each of us have been placed under specific responsibilities for this wedding season.. whether it be leading a children's service in America, baptizing lady-boys in Khon Kaen, discipling Bible students in the Middle East, praying for the sick, loving the lonely, preaching to the lost... each of these things represent one more stamp placed on the invitations for our Wedding with Christ, one more pearl beaded into her jewelry, one more whisper of confidence in her ear as she takes that step toward her love, one more stitch added to the hem of her gown. Don't take these preparations lightly. It's the season of making the bride, the body of Christ across the nations, ready for our Love, our Savior and Husband.

One of my favorite scriptures says that "He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation".. Preaching the Gospel, signs and miracles, repentance, turning from darkness to light... THAT is what makes the Bride ready.

"I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, my soul will exalt in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels... For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not keep quiet, until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness and all kings your glory; and you will be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord will designate. You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said to you "forsaken" not to your land will it any longer be said ,"desolate", but you will be called, "My delight is in her" and your land "Married", for the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married... as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you." - Isaiah 61-62

This scripture speaking of the Bride of Christ, is brought full-circle in Revelation 21 as a description of what the new heaven will be like when this season that we're in now is completed...

"'Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper"... (the flawless descriptions of this heaven go on and on)...

..."and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it, and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." Hallelujah!

Be stirred deep in your spirits not to slack in this time of preparations. It's a time of consistency, of looking at each and every detail while still keeping our eyes on the goal-- the aisle that's being laid before the throne that we will walk down, into the arms of our Love forever. Our Groom's longing for us..