Rev. 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And let the one hearing say, Come! And let the one who is thirsty come. And he willing, let him take of the Water of Life freely.
With the war breaking out in Ukraine there is a lot of speculation that we are in the end of days with the apocalypse on the horizon. Everyone who knows me knows I’m not a gloom and doomer, that I do acknowledge the days we are living in, but remain expectant and focused on the birth of the Kingdom.
The book of Revelation begins with the word “apocalypse” in Greek. “Apocalypse” (Apokalupsis) can be translated as “disclosure” or the “lifting of the veil”! And we find that the Revelation of Yeshua culminates in a marriage, as the Heavenly Bridegroom unites with His Bride.
“The spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”; [Rev.22:17] In the ancient (and some modern) weddings in the middle East, the bride was veiled before being presented to her husband. In a sense, we, Yeshua’s Bride, are still veiled in mortal bodies, that is, until the time when we shall see Him, “face to face” [1 Cor. 13:12], and we shall be as He is. [1 John 3:2]. Then, the veil will be fully removed!
Yet, paradoxically, even in this world we can taste this reality and walk with our faces “unveiled”; “But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit”; [2 Cor. 3:18]. And since the veil was torn in two, [Hebrews 10:19-22] we have access to the most holy place of God through what Yeshua (Jesus) did for us!
A wedding is coming soon, and the veil of this temple, your mortal body, will be forever removed and replaced with immortality. If there are wars and rumors of wars be assured, that looking up, your redemption draws near, and a marriage supper is being prepared for you. Nevertheless, even now you go with your face unveiled revealing the glory of the Lord, and all the more as you walk in fearless anticipation of that soon-coming day when you will be removed from this veil of tears and be wed to the King of Kings. So walk unveiled until the day when your unveiling will be complete in the resurrection of the dead. As a young woman anticipates her wedding day, view these end-time events as harbingers of the happiest day of your life, when your Bridegroom sounds the shofar announcing His return for your wedding! Simply allow Him to prepare you as a bride without spot or wrinkle! [Ephesians 5:25-27]
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]At any time, how receptive your heart is will determine your response to God’s word. If your heart has been trampled, and harden by bitterness and unforgiveness, then receiving God’s message for you will become more difficult. If your heart is like shallow soil on top of a rock, then your mind comprehends God’s truths, yet these truths do not penetrate your heart to make a real difference in your actions. Or if you are concerned about the riches of this life, then your focus is on the here and now, and these pursuits prevent God’s Word from taking hold and producing quality fruit. But a heart that is on good soil, receives the Word, applies the Word, and in due time bring forth abundant fruit! This is God’s desire for you — to have a heart cultivated on good soil!
You may recall a few months ago we sent out an unspoken prayer request on behalf of the ministry without giving any details. At the time, among many other things going on, we went in for an ultrasound and the doctor told us that he wasn’t able to see a nose bone. He went on to say that this was a likely indication that the baby had Downs Syndrome and strongly suggested we get some tests done. When Rivka politely told him that we wouldn’t need any tests and that even if the baby did have Downs, he is a gift from God and there was no way we would abort him, the doctor was taken aback. He insisted that we would be causing an injustice to allow a baby to be born with a defect such as this. And believe it or not, two other doctors agreed.
We found an interesting story in an old copy of “Our Daily Bread”: In 1883 in Allentown, New Jersey, a wooden Indian — the kind that was seen in front of cigar stores — was placed on the ballot for Justice of the Peace. The candidate was registered under the fictitious name of Abner Robbins. When the ballots were counted, Abner won over incumbent Sam Davis by 7 votes. A similar thing happened in 1938. The name Boston Curtis appeared on the ballot for Republican Committeeman from Wilton, Washington. Actually, Boston Curtis was a mule. The town’s mayor sponsored the animal to demonstrate that people know very little about the candidates. He proved his point. The mule won!
It never ceases to amaze me how our little girl, Elianna is growing and developing. I remember when she first came into this world, she was so helpless and frail — she couldn’t even move her head without our help. Now, just having turned two, she’s running around and tumbling, jumping, singing and dancing!
Yesterday we wrote about one of the greatest moves of God … the Moravian Revival. When the community was in complete disarray, Count Zinzendorf focused on how they could live together in love despite their differences. He called all the men together for an intense study of the Scriptures to focus on how Christian life in community was portrayed. These studies combined with intense prayer convinced many of the believers that they were called to live together in love and that their disunity and conflict were contrary to the clear calling of Scripture.
During the Catholic inquisitions, as millions of Christians were being killed by the Jesuit Priests for apostasy, throughout Europe, Christians were fleeing. In Bohemia alone, there were an estimated 4,000,000 Christians before the Jesuit inquisition, and ten years later, only 800,000 people remained in Bohemia – all of whom were Catholic. These terrible events prepared the ground for one of the greatest moves of God that have ever been recorded, the Moravian Revival, which lasted for over 100 years. Gustav Warneck, the German Historian of Protestant Missions, testified, “This small church in twenty years called into being more missions than the whole Evangelical Church has done in two centuries.”
Revivals, that is, genuine Divinely ordained seasons of the activity of God among men, have a universally unusual character. Normal activities and behaviors give way to the tangible influence of God’s Holy Spirit, whose inspiration brings a freedom of expression, emotion, conviction, worship, and other variations from normal experience.