Category: Devotional

One of the doctrines we teach at Narrow Way Ministries is the bride of Christ is not everyone in the body of Christ. Being part of the bride of Christ is something we must attain to. It is a special company within the body of Christ that have been completely changed into His image (Romans 8:29), are part of the overcomers in the book of Revelation, and know Jesus intimately. Moreover, being part of the bride of Christ is the “prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” (Philippians 3:14). The prize is not heaven. Being saved and born again is the beginning. Heaven is the free gift paid for at Calvary. But knowing Jesus intimately is our goal, the end culminating in the reward of entrance to the “marriage of the Lamb,” “and His wife hath made herself ready,” (Revelation 19:7). Hear a case for the bride of Christ out the Scriptures today and perhaps it will spark a response as Psalms 42:7 says, “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts.” May faith arise as you consider the Scriptures presented here for the deep of God is calling out today to the deep in man to “rise up, my love, and come away,” (Song 2:10). The is the call to brideship because what is the purpose of a doctrine if it doesn’t provoke us, lead us closer to Jesus, and birth truth “that eyes of your undertanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling,” (Ephesians 1:18). In these days in which we live, the cry of our bridegroom Jesus is still calling out stronger than ever! While others are drawing back to lukewarmness, this is our opportunity to keep preparing ourselves and pressing in to know Jesus intimately. It is the call to brideship. Here’s a case for it today: Return, Return, O Shulamite “Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee..” (Song of Solomon 6:13) There are three figures in Song of Solomon 6 with whom we want to concern ourselves. One, who is the bridegroom, is the Lord Jesus. The second is the Shulamite, or the bride. The others are the daughters of Jerusalem, who are speaking, asking the bride to return. The daughters of Jerusalem begin to speak and they say, “Return, Return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee…” Let me first be quick to say that if they are saying to the bride, “return, return,” then that means the bride went somewhere or left from where they were. I believe this is the moment where the bride becomes one with the Lord Jesus being caught up together with Him. Then the Lord Jesus answers and says, “…What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.” The Hebrew word translated “return” in this verse means “to turn back or to return to the starting point.” Four times the call comes from the daughters of Jerusalem to the bride to return. Four in the Scriptures is the number for creation. This clearly is a type of the whole earth crying, waiting, and travailing for the sons of God to come forth. Romans 8:19 says, “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” This is the earth calling to the bride to return. And they want her to return to the starting point. To me, this is interesting because Jesus on many occasions said in the last days there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, Luke 13:28). In other words, this is having great regret in life wishing they could go back to the starting point and do it all over again. At this point, it is too late for the daughters of Jerusalem. In the bride, the daughters of Jerusalem are beholding a manifestation of what they should have been themselves. By the time they realize this, the bride is leaving so they are crying, “return, return.” We see this principle again in Matthew 25 when the five foolish virgins see the five wise virgins gone through an open door that is now shut, and they begin to cry, “Lord, Lord, open to us,” (Matthew 25:11). The entrance into brideship is only as long as the door is open. That door is entrance into the marriage of the Lamb (Matthew 25:10). Therefore, if the door is shut to you, then you are not getting married. That doesn’t mean you are not part of the kingdom of heaven. It just means you are not part of the bride. Can you imagine this scenario? You are denied access to something that you had an open door to your whole life. There are two cries I see here in Song of Solomon 6:13. The first is people wanting to see this bride because they want to see if God really meant what He said. The other is this company of believers who should have known better, crying for another chance. They are saying like the foolish virgins in Matthew 25:11, “Lord, Lord, open to us.” Jesus’ response to them was “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” (Matthew 25:12). The word “know” here speaks of intimacy. Jesus is not sending people to hell here. Jesus is simply saying He never was intimately involved in their lives. God is after intimacy with all of us. He wants a bride. The Shulamite is the bride. She is the sons of God, the overcomers, etc. I believe one day these sons of God will be manifested in the earth, revealing the real Jesus. Jesus’ ministry while He was on earth was only three and a half years. Seven is perfection. Therefore, I believe there is an-other three and a half year ministry that must come forth to bring perfection. You and I can be a part of this. The bridegroom's call is out, “And at midnight, there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him,” (Matthew 25:6). The Bride Has Reach Perfection Shulamite in Hebrew means “complete.” It comes from a root word that means “to be complete, to be peaceful, or to have peace.” It is the feminine form of the name Solomon, a type of the Lord Jesus. In other words, when the daughters of Jerusalem are calling out to her, “O Shulamite,” they are basically saying, “O completed one.” The Scriptures are full of admonitions for us to reach a place of perfection. The words perfect and complete in the Bible mean the same thing. They are interchangeable. Jesus said in Matthew 5:48, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” I Peter 5:10 says, “But the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect…” Jesus was made “perfect through sufferings.” Should we expect anything less for our lives? James 1:4 says, “But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” God wants a completed people. Psalms 138:8 says, “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.” Pauls exhorts the body of Christ in Hebrew 6:1, “Let us go on unto perfection…” This is the mark that we are headed towards as a people. It is not heaven. Heaven is forever settled and sure by the sacrifice of Jesus. The mark is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14). It is a place where we are free from sin and free from torment. It is a place where we have the image of Jesus in us (Romans 8:29), not just in our spirit when we are born again but in our soulish man. In this place, we are no longer just a partaker of the divine nature (II Peter 1:4). We have become it! It doesn’t mean we are divine, but have the image of the divine. The purpose of the five-fold ministry is to perfect the saints, “And he gave some apos-tles; and some, prophets; and some, evange-lists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,” (Ephesians 4:11-13). This is what God wants for you and me. I don’t believe the old teaching that we will always be sinners the rest of our lives. In other words, they are saying, don’t hope for any deliverance beyond what you already got when you were saved. Jesus is coming for a bride “not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish,” (Ephesians 5:27). Lift Your Vision Higher Lift your vision higher today. Let God raise your vision through these Scriptures. Stop thinking about selfish desires on this earth. Get your mind out of the things that surround you. Get a heavenly vision and see that what God is doing is something spiritual. The door is open now! In a parable about the marriage supper in Luke 14, Jesus said, “A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuses,” (Luke 14:16-18). Most will go with the unified consent to make excuses for not pressing on in Jesus. Don’t let that be us. Let us stop being consumed with the desire for natural things and fix our eyes on our spiritual calling to be like this Shulamite. This Shulamite has the image of Jesus. Romans 8:29 says, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son…” The word “image” means an exact duplicate in kind. What is your vision today? Is it just to have a ministry or be used of the Lord? The earth is groaning, not for deacons. It is not groaning and travailing for someone who has a singing ministry. We’ve had and continue to have that, and it doesn’t bring about the change people are hungry for. Ministry comes and goes, and God’s people remain incomplete. We wreak of incompleteness and the earth sees it. But the moment completion takes place, the earth is going to shake. We are not going to need a TV show to reach people. People will see it and cry for it when a completed people start walking in holiness, purity, and in power and glory. That We May Look Upon Thee In Song of Solomon, they are crying to the bride to return, “that we may look upon thee.” “Look” in Hebrew means to contemplate with delight. For the bride, most of her life is filled with disdain, rejection, misunderstandings, etc. While others are living life for themselves, the bride is living for Jesus. Other won’t understand her passion or decisions. But in the end, when she is completed, others will contemplate with delight. Psalms 102:14 says, “For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof.” This is speaking of Zion. Stones here mean the characteristics of God in her life. The daughters of Jerusalem will take pleasure in the character of the bride. In Song of Solomon 6:9 we read, “The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.” These all represent other ranks and members of the body of Christ, praising and blessing the bride. Moreover, we see in Isaiah 60 that when the Word comes for the dawning of God’s glory in His people as darkness covers the earth, “…and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee…” (Isaiah 60:2-4). In verses 14-15 of Isaiah 60, we also read, “The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, the city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations.” Zephaniah 3:19-20 says, “Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord.” I couldn't care less about people bowing down to our feet. I just want us to see today that we have not suffered in vain. If we keep following on to know the Lord, we will see the eternal benefit of all that we endured as we stand one day as “a completed one” while others look upon us wishing they could be us. In the description of the virtuous women (a type of the bride) in Proverbs 31 it says, “Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her,” (Proverbs 31:28). When the daughters of Jerusalem look at the bride, they don’t want her to leave. They realize that as long as she was there, there was more peace. They realize that as long as she was around, the presence of God was there. They want to know how in the world she became all that she became. As the Days of Noah Were We see this same scenario in Noah. For 100 years, he was there building the ark. Others probably walked by him every day over that span thinking he was crazy and wasting his time. But when drops of rain began to fall, everything changed, and the door was shut for everyone else but Noah and his family. Jesus said in Matthew 24:37-39, “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Jesus is coming for His bride. This bride will enter into the marriage while others won’t be able to because they weren’t ready. And the enemy wants to make us believe this isn’t so. The enemy wants us to focus on the pleasures and desires of this life over anything else. Babylon, typified in the strange woman in Proverbs 7:18-19, seduces the young man by saying, “Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey.” Peter says in II Peter 3:3-4, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoff-ers, walking after their own lusts, And say-ing, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Satan wants us to “take our fill of love” with all the world has to offer. He wants us to forget about the goodman (type of Jesus) and make this calling of brideship seem pointless and a waste of time. But the more I see the day approaching, the more I want to come together with God’s people, worshipping Jesus and living in the manifest presence of God. And one day that glory is going to lift us all up as “a completed one” glorifying Jesus and manifesting forth His glory!

Category: Devotional

A Case for the Bride

NWMI

Courses

Resources