Revelation 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Since my wife and I just celebrated our 7,000-day wedding anniversary, it reminded me of when my wife and I were initially married in Jerusalem -- before our major wedding in the States.
During that special evening in Jerusalem, my wife elaborately prepared for our wedding. It was just a small gathering at her father's house, but it was so sweet. Her dad prepared beautiful and delicious Israeli delicacies. We built a chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy) from her great grandfather's tallit (Jewish prayer shawl). A Paul Wilbur CD played softly in the background, and about a hundred candles lit the living room. My soon-to-be wife had spent hours bathing and doing her hair and getting beautiful for the occasion, and finally, out she came. It all was so romantic, well planned, and wonderfully prepared.
We are our Lord's bride! And in the same way, we have a responsibility to prepare for His return! We have some work to do, don't we?
Let's examine our hearts today and lay it all out before Him. Let's give Him the first fruits of our day in worship and study and prayer and allow Him to refine and cleanse us -- that we may be found a bride without wrinkle or spot – that we would be found a holy and righteous and beautiful bride for Him and our celebration together would be glorious!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]For centuries in Ethiopia, there have lived a people we now know as the Falashas. They kept all sorts of Biblical traditions and call themselves Beta Yisrael (House of Israel). As experts began to study the matter, it became clear that these were descendants of the Jewish people who came to Africa in ancient times and intermarried. Unbeknownst to many, a percentage of them became believers in Jesus over the years. Jesus (or Yeshua, as they called Him) became a part of their identity as Jewish people. Many Falashan Jews worshipped Jesus as their Messiah and continued to practice Jewish tradition.
So often in our walks with the Lord, we become focused on what we can see, what we can hear and what we can sense in the physical realm. Like that young man, we focus on the enemy’s attacks around and about us. At times we can get so focused on our physical circumstances that we forget that the Lord has already provided for us the victory!
Why is it that some believers seem to go much deeper in their walk with God than others? I believe it has to do with a desire to pursue God and not to stop until they feel His very presence in their lives. These believers decide not to settle for anything less than a growing, vibrant relationship with God, and God honors that desire for those who seek it.
This pivotal passage of scripture, Isaiah 52 and continuing into Isaiah 53, profiles a suffering servant whom the nation of Israel would not recognize. The spiritual leaders of Yeshua’s (Jesus) day were blinded to the messianic passages which pointed to the messiah’s role as a humble servant and bearer of sins.
A recent study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California Los Angeles wanted to find out, “if you had to choose between more time and more money, what would it be?” While they found most respondents answered, “more money”, they also found that those who preferred “more time” were generally happier! When I read this article, it reminded me of a story, that I’d like to share.
The Lord spoke to Moses, who led the children of Israel out of Egypt to be desperately cornered with the Red sea before them and Pharaoh’s chariots advancing upon them from behind. Overwhelmed with terror they cry out to Moses, “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Having just miraculously escaped from the miserable life of slavery, and only beginning their new life of freedom, the children of Israel were faced with the most dire threat to their existence.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun a series of devotions based on the Exodus wanderings of the Children of Israel, and their tragic mistakes which we can learn from and avoid. One powerful influence common to their failures was fear.