Isaiah 62:5 For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. As a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, so your God will rejoice over you.
Revelation 19:7-8 Let us be glad and rejoice and we will give glory to Him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has prepared herself. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. For the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.
Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
The last and most intimate metaphor for Messiah’s relationship with us is as Bridegroom to Bride. For some, the Lord’s intention to marry will be the most significant and wondrous purpose in all of Creation. The preparation for the wedding will be the most meticulous and profound of all historical processes, orchestrated by His Holy Spirit in cooperation with every devoted and expectant saint who ever lived.
Ancient wedding customs provide insight illustrating our preparation for the divine wedding ahead. In ancient times, acquiring a bride involved a transaction; a bride-price and a dowry were set and agreed upon in the betrothal of a young couple. Following this agreement, the bridegroom returned to His Father’s house to build a domicile for his expectant bride while she anticipated her husband’s return by preparing her wedding garments.
In parallel, our betrothal to our holy Lord, the beginning of our preparation for marriage, required the offering of His cleansing blood on our behalf. And before returning to his Father’s house following his death and resurrection, Yeshua told his disciples, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself.” [John 14:2-3]
It is clear that Yeshua expected his followers to understand the parallel to betrothal and marriage customs within their own culture and to apply that understanding to their own relationship with him. This applies to us as well. Anticipating our Bridegroom’s return will awaken a deep excitement stimulating an intense desire to be prepared for him.
Your love for your Bridegroom will be expressed in your desire to be like him. That preparation is the work of the Holy Spirit within you, cleansing and transforming you through faith, good works, obedience, and prayer, the “fabric” of your wedding garment. Your joyful anticipation of his soon return will inspire the abiding, which prepares you for the heavenly announcement you’ve waited for all your life.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]A new driver for an interstate trucking company was having a difficult time. He found the long cross-country trips extremely tiring. The older driver who traveled with him, however, seemed to thrive on those long trips. He always seemed to look as fresh at the end of the ride as he did at the beginning.
There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, however if we want to experience His blessings we need to observe the qualifications that He’s given us in His Word. Psalm 112 details a whole list of blessings, but the key to receiving them is verse 1.
Looking at the relationship between “love and affection” (“chiba” in Hebrew) and “obligation” (“chova” in Hebrew), we find another closely related word, “chaver”, one of the Hebrew words for “friend”. Friends are people with whom we share love and affection and also a sense of obligation. Our God and Father wants us to be His friends, to share love and affection with Him and to carry the sense of responsibility and obligation which friendship requires.
We are called to be servants, are we not? Well, what does a servant do? He (or she) carries out the will of his master. A servant doesn’t tell his master what to do — he performs whatever tasks the master requests of him. A servant doesn’t choose what days or times it’s most convenient to serve his master. A servant’s function is simply to follow and obey his master’s instructions. A servant does not develop a vision for the master either. The master is the one with the vision — and he wants his servants to be ready and available to carry out that vision and bring it to fruition.
David is called a “man after God’s own heart.” Considering that he lusted after his neighbor’s wife, committed adultery with her, and had her husband murdered, the Lord’s description of him is remarkable. How could a man who was convicted a murderer and an adulterer also be called one after God’s own heart?
“Break up your fallow ground.” In this context, the Lord is referring to breaking up the ground overrun with weeds and thorns creating a hardness to produce righteous fruit.
This passage in Isaiah contains a poetic play on words which is lost to any reader but one who understands Hebrew. A word for word translation runs something like this: “If not you will believe (lo ta-aminoo), surely not you will be established (lo te-amenoo).” The three letter Hebrew root – “aleph”- “mem”- “nun”, is the same in both words, and the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah is clearly playing on this root to emphasize His point. The same root letters are also used in the spelling for the familiar word “Amen” which literally means “truthfully”.