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April 2006

 

Every little girl loves a love story and most big girls do, too. Although we don’t think of Christianity first and foremost as a love story, it is. We are caught up in the love story to end all love stories. And it gets better—we aren’t the ugly stepsister, we are the Bride, the object of the Bridegroom's affection. But, in preparation for our glorious wedding day, we sometimes have a not-so-glorious journey to walk through.

The devotional below teaches about leaning on Holy Spirit and developing intimacy with Holy Spirit as a Person, the Best Friend of the Bridegroom.

Leaning on my Beloved,
Jill

Holy Spirit: Preparing the Bride for Her Groom

Let’s turn to the last page of the story and get a peek at our groom:
“Who is this coming out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the merchant’s fragrant powders?”
(Song of Solomon 3:6)

Jesus, our Bridegroom King, left Heaven’s paradise and came to fallen earth to redeem a Bride. He is coming out of the wilderness with this smoky glory surrounding Him. He is perfumed with myrrh, signifying His suffering. The swirling frankincense represents His intercession for her. This is our Jesus, the smoky, fiery, perfumed, majestic One who died for His Bride.

This perfumed, fragrant Bridegroom God ascended to Heaven in pillars of fire and smoke. The angels were thrilled as they heard Him say, “Father, I did it! I paid the price for Her.” The Father said to the Son, “Sit here, on My right hand. Now I must send My Holy Spirit. He will also go through the wilderness to fallen humanity and He will find and train Your Bride.”

Holy Spirit is looking for voluntary lovers that say, “Yes, I will go with You! Yes, I want to know the Bridegroom King!” Even though you haven’t seen Him face-to-face, the Holy Spirit will be One who will reveal the Bridegroom to you. He is the One who brings the revelation of salvation, of conviction and repentance. He is the teacher and guide. He illuminates the Word of God, taking the logos and making it heart-gripping rhema. He wants to awaken your destiny and birthright. This awesome Holy Spirit is the One who awakens and sets our hearts on fire for our glorious Bridegroom King.

Holy Spirit Sent by Father God to Find the Bride
Let’s look at another love story involving a search for the bride. In Genesis 24, Abraham commissions his servant to find a bride for his son. As I draw a parallel between these two stories, Abraham will represent Father God and the oldest servant of the house represents Holy Spirit.

The servant leaves the father and goes through the wilderness with ten camels loaded with a large dowry. He arrives at a well and puts out a fleece, “Have the right maiden give me a drink and offer to water my camels, too.”

Here comes beautiful Rebekah, dressed as a servant, doing her chores just like she does everyday. He asked her for a drink. Immediately something quickened in her heart and she said, “Yes sir. Can I also water your camels, too?” That was an extravagant offer. They had just come out of the desert and were very thirsty. One camel can drink about 30 gallons, so she was offering to draw about 300 gallons of water!!

Hidden in this simple request for a drink was a prophetic invitation for her. When she made her offer, Rebekah didn’t know there was a son. All she saw were thirsty camels. So often, Holy Spirit comes and asks for just a drink of water, and so often, we reject His prophetic invitation because we don’t know what’s concealed.

Holy Spirit Offers Gifts, but Intimacy with Him Is Most Important
Rebekah truly had a servant’s heart. After she watered the camels she asked the servant if he and his entourage would like to come to her house. How would you like your teenage daughter to invite a crew like that to your home? The servant presented her with gifts. She ran home and showed her brother Laban. The gold bracelets and nose ring got his attention and Laban ran to extend his own personal invitation to the servant.

When we see the gifts of Holy Spirit, we want them, don’t we? What are the gifts the servant brought? He came to the bride’s house with a lot of jewelry. Holy Spirit brings gifts of healing and gifts of deliverance. We need the gifts of Holy Spirit in the Bride’s house. But, sometimes we get so focused on the gifts, we forget that He is a Person with a personality and that we need intimacy with Him even more than we need His gifts.

Laban wanted to eat, but the servant said, “No. My mission is urgent. First, I must tell you a story.” Something came alive in Rebekah as the servant told of Isaac’s miracle birth. She probably said, “Okay, there’s more here than just camels! There’s a son who will awaken my heart!”

We Have to Walk through the Wilderness to Get to the Bridegroom
After the story, they ate and fellowshipped all night. The servant was asked to stay another ten days before he took Rebekah, but he said, “No. I have a mission. I have to get the bride to the son.” So often we want to stay in the Bride’s house. We want to stay where all the gifts are and have a party. We lack revelation of the importance of our journey. We see Holy Spirit like He is only there for our benefit, “I need a healing and a little refreshing.” We don’t understand the magnitude of this incredible love story and the journey to the Bridegroom King who longs for His Bride.

The servant asked Rebekah if she was willing to leave immediately. She would have to travel hundreds of miles to get through this wilderness of varied terrain--valleys, mountains, streams and pools. Immediately she said, “Yes, I am willing to leave my family to follow you now.” She didn’t know how to get to Isaac. She had to totally trust her relationship with the servant to lead her there. If you think that the only time you can have a real touch of Holy Spirit is by going to a conference, your heart will faint in the wilderness. Holy Spirit is not just phenomena—fire, wind, oil--He is a person. Yes, He will come with those attributes, but you must develop intimacy and trust with Holy Spirit to prepare you for your journey through the wilderness.

Rebekah was willing to leave her comfort zone. She was willing to go into times of isolation. She didn’t understand the terrain; she was totally dependent on the servant. Others didn’t understand how the Lord was leading her. But all of this was part of the wilderness and in this journey, the servant was saying, “Are you willing to follow Me?"

Holy Spirit Will Protect and Guide You
Holy Spirit is jealous to bring a pure, lovesick Bride to Jesus. He will protect you. He knows the fears and weaknesses you have. He knows the times your heart faints. He wants to do a radical work of healing, cleansing and deliverance so that you will mature into who you were created to be--the Bride. He takes away everything that hinders love--callousness, brokenness, unforgiveness and pain.

Every time your heart says, “Yes”, the Son’s heart leaps as He sees His Bride moving closer to Him in love. Jesus wears many crowns, but the one crown we, as the Bride, can give to Him is our voluntary love. As we give Him our love, it crowns Him.

So What does Your Wilderness Look Like?
Our individual wildernesses are unique--there are different types of mountains that you have to cross. There are obstacles, persecution and misunderstandings. Holy Spirit will ask you to go to the mountain of myrrh, the time of the dark night of the soul. He led Jesus into the wilderness for a time of great testing. When Jesus came out, He was filled with authority and with heavenly power. He was able to do whatever the Father told Him to do. Just like Jesus, we will also go through suffering, but Holy Spirit will be there with us, too.

You will walk with Holy Spirit over the hills of daily pressures. How do you get around all these obstacles? There are important choices you must make. Are you willing to climb higher? Holy Spirit might say, “I want you to cling to me so that I can take you up.” There are also low times of going through the valleys where your heart faints with despair. “Holy Spirit, are you still with me? I can’t feel You.” But, yes, He is always there. I tell you, He is skillful and knows the terrain.

Wilderness Landmarks to Remember
The wilderness isn’t all bad; in the wilderness, we develop wonderful landmarks inside of us where we meet intimately with the Holy Spirit. As we continue through the wilderness, on the way to meet our lovely Bridegroom King we establish these “Places of Remembrance". During stressful times and hurtful issues, the Lord invites you to meet Him and make a holy covenant. Then, when you go through hard times in the future, you can look back at this place and know that you have met with God.

I’m not talking about an event or a conference as a landmark "Place of Remembrance". Some of us don’t really know Holy Spirit as a Person. If we don’t know Him in this way, then when we aren’t in seasons of renewal, or we don’t attend meetings where the fire is released, then we feel alone and abandoned. We need to cultivate this relationship at home! We each are responsible for our own intimate relationship with Holy Spirit so that as we go through the despair of the wilderness, we will immediately yield and lean on our Beloved Guide.

I feel this is a prophetic word for this hour. I feel that peoples’ hearts will embrace Holy Spirit as a Person. He will begin to come to center stage because He brings the Bridegroom King. Tell Him you want to know Him personally. “Holy Spirit we want more of You. We ask you to break our outdated mindsets. Where we have limited You with different kinds of paradigms, or church cultures, we ask You to forgive us. We want to know You Holy Spirit. We want to know the Best Friend of the Bridegroom.”

Learn to Trust Holy Spirit to Teach You
I am sure that as Rebekah was going through this wilderness with Holy Spirit, she was saying, “I’m nervous about this high mountain in front of me, please tell me more about Isaac. What does he look like?” The servant had seen Isaac face-to-face, but Rebekah hadn’t. As they trudged along through the heat, the servant told her, “I have known him since the day he was born. He is wonderful, stunning, dazzling, full of light and compassion. This bridegroom is a good, tenderhearted man and when he sees the ones who are broken, despised and rejected, he quickly goes to them. He is a tender shepherd.”

When Rebekah and the servant had successfully negotiated through the desert and came up out of the wilderness, she saw Isaac in the distance. She asked the servant, “Who is he?” The servant replied, “He’s the bridegroom. He is my master.” She got off her camel and ran to him! I would, too, wouldn’t you? Isaac means laughter. He was her glorious, laughing bridegroom.

Jesus is with His Father in Heaven now. The great cloud of witnesses is there. Once again the angels are looking and asking, “Who is this coming out of the wilderness…? Look, she’s leaning on her Beloved.” It is us! It is the victorious Bride coming up out of the wilderness, led by Holy Spirit and looking like the Son! We are going to come up and out leaning with a voluntary weakness, and a loyal heart of love that doesn’t stray in seasons of prosperity or seasons of testing.

Prayer: “Lord, we want to smell like You with the perfumed powders. We want to die to ourselves and go through the wilderness sufferings to the mountains of myrrh. Help us to follow our guide, Holy Spirit, and to develop a trusting, intimate relationship with Him on our journey. We want to be presented to you as a spotless, blameless Bride and we want to bring the harvest with us as we bow before you, our beautiful, loving, Bridegroom King. Amen.”

These products from our bookstore would be excellent with this teaching:

Master Potter-
Master Potter tells the story of Beloved—wounded and left vulnerable by an abused childhood, she is rescued by Master Potter. Whisked away to his rustic home overlooking the quaint village of Comfort Cove, Beloved begins her painful journey of healing.
more >>

Holy Spirit:
Preparing the Bride-

The Holy Spirit is on a heavenly assignment from the Father to go through the wilderness of the earth and prepare a bride for His glorious Son. Are you intimately familiar with this "best friend" of the bridegroom?
more >>

Master Potter & The Mountain of Fire-
The adventure continues with dangers and assaults from Satan, but Beloved and her friends are always under the eye of Master Potter. Aided by Holy Spirit and the angelic hosts, they press on to the Mountain of Fire.
more >>



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