Here Comes the Bride

 

6 Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah!    For our Lord God Almighty reigns. 7 Let us rejoice and be glad    and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come,    and his bride has made herself ready. 8 Fine linen, bright and clean,    was given her to wear.” (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) 9 Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

—Revelation 19:6-9

Recently I received a thank-you note from a young bride for whose wedding I played the organ. She commented that everyone kept saying what a dramatic entrance she had made at the wedding. I did nothing out of the ordinary for her, because I always prepare the bridal professional with a fanfare and loud flourishes.

Her note has me thinking about the great Wedding of the Lamb mentioned in Revelation 19:6-9, which I quoted at the beginning of this blog post.

Many times in Scripture, the Bride is regarded as the church prepared for her groom, Christ Himself. Such a fuss over the bride! It would seem that with Christ as the groom, the focus should be on Him. Yet here Scripture says that she has made herself ready in fine linen, bright and clean. Nothing is spoken of the Groom.

Psalm 45 is a wedding song. In verse 15, the bride is described as wearing gold and embroidered garments. She and her companions are:

“…led in with joy and gladness; they enter the palace of the king.”

Isaiah refers to the Bride in Isaiah 62:5:

“As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”

Something of the symbolism of Christ and His church has been lost in modern wedding ceremonies. In fact, like in the wedding ceremony I referred to earlier, there was neither prayer nor mention of Christ. No wonder this young bride was a bit surprised at her role in the wedding drama. Oh yes, the money and time and dreaming that young girls spend on that perfect dress still exists, but the real meaning of such a dress has been lost.

Recently I read of the Greek Orthodox tradition of crowns in their wedding ceremony. One of the elements of the service involves “crowning” in which the bride and groom receive crowns united by ribbon, representing their union in Christ. The priest says “Crown them with Glory and Honor.” The crowns also symbolize the heavenly crowns we receive when we enter paradise. They are a reminder that marriage involves “dying of self” in the same way that we die to self so that Christ can live in us. After the marriage ceremony, the crowns are typically displayed in a case above the bed as a constant reminder of the holy state of marriage.

The Apostle Paul also speaks of this symbolism in his letter found in Ephesians 5:25-28:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.”

Yes, Christ has chosen to put the emphasis on the Bride. He chose her, bought her with His own blood, brought her to a relationship with Himself, and waits to present her to the Heavenly Hosts and all creation.

I wonder what the music will sound like when we are presented to Him in the Heavenly Kingdom? Will it be dramatic? I would imagine it will!!

 

 

Selah

 

	I reach out for you. I thirst for you as parched land thirsts for rain. Selah.
	—Psalm 143:6 NLT

How many times have I skipped over this little word “Selah” when reading the Scriptures! Yes, I rushed right by it without thinking. This word has caused many Christians to scratch their heads and just move on to more understandable English text.

The word, “Selah” is Hebrew, and translates best as “interlude” or “Pause and think about that!” Well, I guess we do just the opposite of its purpose when we rush right past the word in our reading.

The interlude, in music, creates a space between other things, like acts in an opera. In church music, the interlude gives worshipers the opportunity to pray and settle their thinking between other elements of a worship service. I like to think of it as the instrumental music between sung hymns or anthems.

“Selah” occurs seventy-one times in the Psalms and three times in the book of Habakkuk, another poetically composed book.

So, what should we consider about giving heed to this little word?

Of course, when we encounter a “Selah,” we should first pause in our reading and meditate on the passage before it, just as the text instructs.

But, even more importantly, I think we need to create “Selah moments” now and then in our busy lives. A daily “Selah”—and here I’m taking freedom and using the word as a noun—happens when we carve out time to meditate on God’s Word. Some have found value in a once-a-year retreat alone where she can spend the entire time focusing on God to nourish the soul.

My personal “Selahs” occur on New Year’s Day, birthdays, after big life events, like a death of a friend or relative. I purposefully allow extra time to consider what God is saying about this new page of life.

I think we bring pleasure to God when we take the time to be thankful, or to turn over a new leaf, or to listen to Him instead of hurrying before Him and making requests.

In this noisy, busy, non-stop world, I urge you to find a quiet place and enjoy the “Selah” moments. What a beautiful way to grow in our understanding and appreciation of all that God is and wants of us!

 

 

On the Road Again

 

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promised. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

—Hebrews 11:9-10

I admire Abraham. Nowhere does Scripture say that HE decided to leave Haran in Mesopotamia for a new place to live. He didn’t decide to “retire” to a Mediterranean villa where he could put his feet up and enjoy his old age.

Scripture does tell us in Genesis 12, that God called him and told him to leave his country, his people and his family and go to a land God would reveal. He was seventy-five years old, established in Haran with a large accumulation of possessions.

I admire Abraham. From the day he left Haran, he never had a permanent home again. The scripture says, “He lived in tents.” I don’t know about you, but the older I’ve become, the more I want my “creature comforts.” Starting over, traveling in less than ideal conditions, living in a tent, just don’t appeal to me anymore.

Somewhere in the last year or two, in response to my church situation, I formed the phrase, “Ever on the road—never home.”

We all crave stability and the comfort of home. We resemble the restless swallow of Psalm 84 that flits around looking for a place to have her young and often discovers that place near the altar of God’s house.

Yes, I admire Abraham. He obeyed God and set out in faith, not knowing where he was going. He did not have the provision of the Scriptures we have, the richness of the Psalms to encourage him, the stories of other heroes of faith we see in Hebrews 11. God commended him for good reason.

I, too, need to follow in faith, when I don’t know where I’m going or how long the journey will be, regardless of my age. Moses, probably also an old man, penned Psalm 90 which begins:

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.”

He, too, knew an old age full of wandering and trusting God.

The Apostle Peter knew what it meant to feel “Ever on the road—never home.” In his first letter, he referred to Christians in 1 Peter 2:11 as:

“…aliens and strangers in the world.”

Similarly, the old gospel song states:

“This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue,”

Even if we have a sense of home and stability in our lives, we must remember that God never meant us to completely settle here. We can rejoice that He has given us a real home and that some day, we will all come to “a city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

On that great day, we’ll never be “on the road again”!

 

 

My Suitable Portion

 

	“ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
	—Psalm 73:26

	“I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’”
	—Lamentations 3:24

I may lose, and lose, and lose—people, place, position, possessions, but not my portion. We tend to take our comfort, our joy, our stability, our sense of well-being and balance from these things.

Back in 1967, a study called the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory identified the top ten stressors they found. The list included:

• death of spouse
  
  
• divorce
  
  
• separation
  
  
• jail
  
  
• death of close relative
  
  
• injury or illness
  
  
• marriage
  
  
• being fired from job
  
  
• marriage reconciliation
  
  
• retirement.
  
  

Personally, I would add “moving to a new city.” And, from the experience of many Christians, I would add “strife within the church.”

The human race has never been without stress. Can you imagine how stressed Adam and Eve must have been when God sent them from Eden, their home, into a “big, bad world” they had never known, with sin and death and pain? Stress and loss pretty much sum up the human condition under the rule of sin.

The psalm which inspired Martin Luther to write the hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” speaks the following from Psalm 46:1-3:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

Sometimes we feel like the “earth is giving way.” Everything we have relied on, or that helped our sense of stability can be taken from us. Why does God allow this to happen? I would purport God uses such losses to drive us to Him alone. He wants to be our portion; that which we feed upon, that which gives us nourishment and delights us.

In the 17th century, Puritan writer Thomas Brooks wrote:

“Our God is a suitable portion. No object is as suitable to the heart as he is. He is a portion that is exactly suited to the condition of the soul in its desires, needs, wants, longings and prayers.” ¹

Think how awesome the banquet of God’s love and provision. He who fed the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years on manna can feed us with everything we need. Yes, the manna gave these people a temporary provision while they waited to taste the full bounty of the Promised Land, but he gave them enough as recorded in Exodus 16:12:

“You will be filled with bread.”

The Apostle Paul writes of contentment in Philippians 4:12b:

“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

From this we see our need to learn contentment and rejoice in the portion God gives us.

Whether your portion today is a wafer of manna or a feast of the finest foods, praise God that HE is your portion and HE is enough.

______________________

1 Thomas Brooks, Works, 11:27-28 as quoted in Voices from the Past, edited by Richard Rushing.

 

 

“You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!”

 

Even if you’re a non-smoker like I am, if you grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s, you will likely remember this slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes—all too clever marketing targeted at women. This age of the female gender gaining equality with men, women’s rights, and the sexual revolution brought with it these symbols of what the world regarded as “elegant” or “sophisticated.” Any “modern” woman aspired to look like the cultural images portrayed in such advertising.

This phrase came to mind last summer when I spent an evening with my graduating class for our 50th high school reunion. Such an event is a rather “normalizing” occasion in which all present meld again into just “Ann, the girl whose father died when we were in the third grade,” or “Jim, the farm boy with red hair and freckles.” It seems almost impossible to put into dinner conversation a full explanation of how far we’ve come as adults along the road of life since those days. We have just come way too far.

We can see how far we’ve come in a much more beneficial way by examining our spiritual growth. We look back at commitments we made to Christ as teenagers and the “young love” we experienced toward Him then, as compared to the mature walk of faith we strive for now. Or, we look back to see how drastically different we lived without Christ in our youth to our days of walking with Him faithfully now.

If you journal your faith life, you can benefit from looking back into your old volumes and see how far you’ve come. God wants us to grow. He wants mature servants. He works His grace in us in all its various forms and wants us to join Him in working that grace out in our lives.

I am reminded of the Parable of the Talents in which a wealthy landowner called in his servants and entrusted his property to them in the form of talents. He expected them to invest and grow the trust He had given them. He rewarded those who put the talents to work, and threw the servants out as “worthless” who only buried their talent.

At the end of our lives, He wants to speak to us the words from Matthew 25:23:

“Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

Sophistication, an elegant look, a culturally acceptable persona do not come close by comparison. But, if we’ve walked faithfully with Christ, we can still say “You’ve come a long way, Baby!”

 

 

Harvest

 

	“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
	—2 Corinthians 9:6, 8

During my teaching career, I loved those crisp fall days when the kindergarten children would walk out to their buses with bulging backpacks full of fruit they had picked on their field trip to the apple orchard. They proudly exhibited how much weight they could carry, expressed with groans of heavy toil as they walked.

Todd beamed, too. But instead of keeping his apples hidden, he carried them in his hands and offered them to staff members as he made his way down the hall.

“Hey, look what I picked! Would you like one?” he asked as he walked toward me.

I accepted his proffered gift and thought about Todd and his sister. These children obviously lacked in ordinary material possessions. The clothing they wore betrayed their poverty. Yet here he came, the poorest of the lot, giving out his apples right and left.

Was it possible that Todd at age five had already discovered the joy of giving? Perhaps this rare occasion, when he had something tangible to give away, provided those of us observing him a glimpse at his generous heart.

It pleases God if we give cheerfully like that. Sometimes we give because we feel others expect us to give. Sometimes we give because someone has actually asked for a donation.

What can God teach us today about giving?

Do you have something which you could give away to bring pleasure to another? Do you have something God wants you to give in a cheerful and abandoned manner?

Ask God to share with you His perspective on giving. Search His Word for what He has to say about giving. Take note of the verses that opened this blog post.

If you follow His instruction regarding giving, in your obedience you will surely reap a generous harvest!

 

 

The Voice

 

Maybe you’ve seen the popular musical television contest called “The Voice,” which begins with a blind audition. The four judges face the audience and listen to the artists sing. If they believe they would like to act as a coach for a particular artist they hear, the judge turns toward the artist and his or her chair lights up with the words, “I Want You.”

What a wonderful thing—to hear the voice of someone you respect giving you that kind of message. My analogy breaks down here, because instead of writing this devotional about our voice, I want to focus this devotional on the voice of our God. We want to hear His voice speak clearly to us. And, when we do, we know He has said to us, “I want you!”

In the well-known passage, John 10:27, Jesus says:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me…”

In another passage found in Isaiah 30:21, the prophet Isaiah gives this instruction to the people of Israel:

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”

But, “What does God’s voice sound like?” you ask.

Like us, God uses His voice differently to fit the circumstances. Psalm 29:3 says:

“The God of glory thunders, the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.”

Yet, in 1 Kings 19:12, we read that:

“After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”

Like earthly fathers, our Heavenly Father uses His voice in ways appropriate for each situation to assure that He will be heard. When we need a swift warning of danger, we hear the tone of voice that will get our attention. When we need the comfort of His nearness, we hear the “still small voice.”

Do you know the voice of the Father? God wants us to recognize Him just as we do when our earthly father calls on the phone and we instantly know His expression and intonation.

God purposefully desires our fellowship. He does say, “I want you.” Just as He requested a response in Scripture, He requests a response from you and from me.

In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says:

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”

This is the very best news spoken by the very best Voice that we could receive!