We are His Bride

Prison message 10-30-2013

We are His Bride

Revelation 19:7-10 (HCSB) 7 Let us be glad, rejoice, and give Him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has prepared herself.

Let us be glad, here us is the church we must be glad because we have been united with Christ. Christ is the groom and the church is the wife and we are one together. He is the one who has been preparing the church and getting her ready for the presence of God.

Isaiah 25:6-9 (HCSB) 6 The LORD of Hosts will prepare a feast for all the peoples on this mountain— a feast of aged wine, choice meat, finely aged wine. 7 On this mountain ⌊He⌋ will destroy the ⌊burial⌋ shroud, the shroud over all the peoples, the sheet covering all the nations; 8 He will destroy death forever. The Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from every face and remove His people’s disgrace from the whole earth, for the LORD has spoken.

Death will no longer exist 9 On that day it will be said, “Look, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He has saved us. This is the LORD; we have waited for Him. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

Now here is where it gets personal and convicting.

Ephesians 5:24-27 (HCSB) 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives are to ⌊submit⌋ to their husbands in everything. Remember here the husband is Christ and we are the wife or the bride or church.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her Do you love your wife as Christ loved the church or are you even married to the woman that you live with or have had children with?

26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. Are we being spiritual leaders in our house or are we leaving that up to our wives to do? Do you study the word together and pray together? I know you can’t do this now but you can prepare to be doing this when you get out and reunited.

27 He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.

Jesus is the only one who can cleanse us completely and prepare us for home with Him. We must never think we can do this on our own by works. It's by His grace and mercy.

8 She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints. We are to wrap ourselves with Jesus and no longer live in our old ways. Galatians 2:20 Not only are we to know what the bible teaches but we are to do what the bible teaches. Our obedience is where true freedom is found. 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. Has the veil been removed in your life? Can you see Jesus and do you desire more of Him and less of this world?

The bride wore this clothing that had been purchased for her by the blood of Christ; she made herself "ready" through her faithfulness to Christ until the day of the "wedding," when she would be joined with him.

9 Then he said to me, “Write: Those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb are fortunate!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.” Do you feel fortunate? Here it talks about an invitation for being invited and united with Christ but have you responded to it? Not all the men here have been invited to the marriage feast YET. We must know how fortunate we truly are and share the invitation that Christ has given us and tell others.

10 Then I fell at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow slave with you and your brothers who have the testimony about Jesus. Worship God, because the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” We are to give glory to God and worship Him alone. Here John bows to an angel and immediately gets corrected. He knew who he needed to bow to but was probably a bit overwhelmed at the fact that he was in heaven. See here prophecy is not fortune telling and talking about what is going to happen to you as an individual. It is more important than just your life. The prophecy is in the name of Jesus and the good news. That's all the prophecy we should be concerning ourselves with.

We all need to do inventory of our relationships here on earth with our wives or those we say we are married to and more importantly our relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ if He is who we call our Lord. Have we opened the invitation to salvation and have we responded? Who is lord over your life? Is He Jesus or someone else or something else? Has the veil been removed? Do you want to see life and experience life for the first time? The veil can be removed and you can see the glory of the Lord. And like the blind man who was healed in John 9 you too can say you were once blind and now you can see. I was blind for 31 years of my life but now I can see! My vision gets clearer and clearer as I study the word and get to know Jesus in a personal way. One day we all will see crystal clear without glasses and the truth will be completely revealed to us. We are His bride and one day soon we will be united with Him!