Tag: Bride of Christ

Would That You Had Known

This is a solemn phrase of regret to those at the end the road. Facing the consequences, without a way to mend the decision made. We often regret certain decisions when facing the results of them. But the regret coming to us from God is serious and concerning, because it involves decision He is making against our actions. At the end of our Lord’s life on the earth, He called the attention of Israel, exclaiming, “Would that you had known personally, even at least in this your day, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For a time is coming upon you when you enemies will throw up a bank about you and surround you and shut you in on every side; and they will dash you down to the  ground, you [Jerusalem]  and your children within you ; and then will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not come progressively to recognize and know and understand the time of your visitation [that is, when God was visiting you, the time in which God showed Himself gracious toward you and offered you salvation through Christ]. (Luke 19:42-44).

The days were getting closer for our Lord to offer Himself as the ultimate sacrifice for His people and the world. A warning was given, but not received well, for there was not belief to apply to YAHSHUA’S words. His heart was bleeding for the people, as He wept over the city (Luke 19:41). Israel was deaf and blind spiritually to the reality of YAHSHUA’S prophetic words. O how He tried to save them from the coming disaster! His love flowed audibly over the city of Jerusalem; the city of God. Destruction was eminent if they did not repent; YAHSHUA saw the stubbornness of their hearts and wept, as He saw the consequences of their hard hearts looming in the near future. Another time He warned them saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who continue to kill the prophets and to stone those who are sent to you! How often I have desired and yearned to gather your children together as a hen [gathers] her young under her wings, but you would not! Then He declared, Behold, your house is forsaken (abandoned, left to you destitute of God’s help)! And I tell you, you will not see Me again until the time comes when you shall say, Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 13:34-35).

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Behold, A King Will Reign in Righteousness

For unto us a Child is born, to us a Son is given and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace; of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end; upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from the [latter] time forth, even forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, in his book the Footstep of the Messiah, clearly explains to us the meaning of this prophecy: The eternity of the Davidic dynasty throne, and kingdom is assured; it rests in the God-Man. As to His humanity, He is descendant of David; as to His deity, He is eternal and so is His throne. His government will be characterized by justice and righteousness forever. In Jeremiah’s prophecy similar to that of Isaiah, he says: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, and He will reign as King and do wisely and will execute justice and righteousness in the land (Jer. 23:5). YAHSHUA’S throne will be established in Jerusalem, but His reign will extend over the entire earth. YAHSHUA will be considered as one God by the entire earth. The beginning of His reign will be marked by a procession of the King into the millennial Jerusalem described in Psalm 24:7-8: Lift up your heads, O you gates; and be lifted up, you age-abiding doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

There will be a Gentile branch in His millennium kingdom consistent of His church. Revelation 20:4 John writes, Then I saw thrones, and sitting on them were those to whom authority to act as judges and to pass sentence was entrusted. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been slain with axes for their witnessing to YAHSHUA and for the Word of God, and who had refused to pay homage to the beast or his statue and had not accepted his mark or permitted it to be stamped on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived again and ruled with Messiah a thousand years. The chain of command will be from Messiah to the church and the tribulation saints to the kings of the Gentile nations. In the millennium time there will be earthly kings, but YAHSHUA will be over all of them. He will be King of kings and Lord of lords. The Jewish branch will be through David, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel so described: But they will serve their God and David’s their King, whom I will raise up for them (Jer. 30:9); and I will raise up over them one Shepherd and He shall feed them, even My Servant David; He shall feed them and He shall be their Shepherd and the Lord will be their God and My Servant David a Prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it (Eze. 34: 23-24). (Fruchtenbaum- The Footsteps of the Messiah)

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YAHSHUA, the Head of His Church

The head (brain) is the control center of the body. From controlling the breathing, the heart beating, and helping us to think and learn, to the control of all our actions and functions, it controls the muscles, facilitating the movements of the body. Together with the spinal cord it sends messages to the body through a network of nerves, called the nervous system, where information is evaluated and decisions made. An amazing organ the brain is! Behind it, there is yet the Creator, even more amazing than what He has created. YAHSHUA is the Word that spoke creation into existence, and it happened. He, for the sake of love for men, His most important creation, died to bring them back into relationship with Him once more, as it was in the days of the Garden of Eden.

When YAHSHUA went through His ordeal unto death, and death on the cross, receiving there the sentence of the curse in our instead, He then established His church at the same time, of whom He is the head, the Cornerstone, the Rock in Whom His church is built. As the head, He has all the right to control all that pertains to His body- the church. The intellect or mind, with its great ability of intelligence, is the battle field between good and evil. It is part of the soul, which is comprised of emotion, and the will also. YAHSHUA, being the head of the body, constitutes the spiritual function of the brain. His Holy Spirit communicates to the church -the body of Christ, sending messages through the study of God’s word and through prayer. But YAHSHUA is not only the invisible head of His church; He is also the visible. For every true believer reflects Whom He is, His attributes through our behavior. Every normal created being has only one head; In its normal way in which it was created, the body functions in harmony with every member of the body. Controlled by the head-brain, each member of the body responds accordingly to what the brain commands it to do. In the spiritual sense that YAHSHUA is the head of His church, the members of the body of Christ should follow the same principle in his everyday life. Otherwise, YAHSHUA’S body will be a dysfunctional body, and chaos will disturb the harmony of its unity. A thing He prayed for before His death in the John 17:20-21:  Neither for these alone do I pray, but also for all those who will ever come to believe in Me through their word and teaching, that they all may be one, as You Father, are in Me an I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe and be convinced that You sent Me. Paul said, Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of the Spirit in the binding power of peace. [There is] one body and one Spirit- just as there is also one hope to the calling you received- there is one God and Father of [us] all, Who is above all pervading all and in all (Eph. 4: 3-4).

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A Life’s Journey of Faith

It comes with determination, perseverance and endurance. All these are needed, in this earthly life, for it is a life of constant battles. Sorting things out that matter on our journey, is essentially important to achieve blamelessness and purity in the sight of God. The Patriarch Abraham leads us in his determination, perseverance and endurance, when he kept the faith in God’s promises, even though it took twenty-seven years for the first one to be fulfilled in his old life time. A life’s journey of faith is a slow and difficult journey, needed of much patience. Many are the giants, the mountains, the fires and many other obstacles we will face. The destination, however is beyond that which we can imagine. It is so wonderful, that all the pains we suffer here are not to be compared to the glorious experience at the end of our journey to that beautiful place, called heaven! The apostle Paul, on his journey of faith never gave up in all his sufferings, because he knew where he was going; he knew that he was not a citizen of this world, but of heaven, as are all who have trusted the Lord for their salvation. He went hungry, he went thirsty and cold, slandered and defamed, he was made rubbish and filth of the world and taken for dead. Paul looked beyond all and stayed the course of his destination. At the end of his life, he could well say, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (II Tim. 4:7).

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The Left Behind Bride

(Matt. 25:1-13; 24:40-41; I Thess. 5:1-3)

Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name and driven out demons in Your name and done many mighty works in Your name? and then I will say to them openly, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly (Matt. 7:21-23).

We live in a time of convenience and short cuts to everything. Computers are the master mind of things we used to do yesterday.  The age of high tech has indeed handicapped the mind of men. We only have to know how to click or press a button for things to happen. The sad thing about it is not only that our brains have become lazy and shrinking, but it has affected the spiritual side of things too. We can only tolerate teachings that tickle our ears. It has to be convenient for us to follow in line with our life styles. Conviction is a thing of the past. “I am okay, you are okay.” All our sins have been forgiven, no need to cry over them with repentance. The Word of God says that we must be born of the Spirit to be considered being born again. It is the only way that we can receive the image of God. His image is His Holy Spirit, Who is given at that time of our spiritual birth.

We may spend our life in church, teaching Sunday- School, preaching the Gospel, visiting the sick, we may never miss a day going to church, we may perform healing, prophesy, even casting demons out and still not being born again. We may impress the world with our look of humility and sacrificed life, but we can never impress God with all we do outside of Him. YAHSHUA said to a Pharisee, “You must be born again”. He assured Nicodemus that unless a person is born again, he cannot ever see the kingdom God; unless a man is born of water and [even] the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3: 3,4-6). Born of the Spirit, is when the Holy Spirit of God indwells the person. His indwelling is the sign that we are born again. The results are seen in the way we think, act and behave. His indwelling is the Seal, also a guarantee of our inheritance, in anticipation of its full redemption and our acquiring possession of it (Ephesians 1: 13-14).

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Under His Wings I Delight to Sit

God’s banner- the protecting and comforting covering over us is His love. Under His wings we find a place of refuge and strength as the storm  passes by, with faith, believing that He is preparing us a place; and someday, not far away, He will come for us with the loud cry of summons, with the voice of the Archangel and with the blast of His trumpet. (John 14:1-3; I Thessalonians 2:16). Under His wings, oh glorious feeling that is, being covered with His peace! The Lord has promised complete peace for those whose minds are set on Him with trust. In the midst of chaos and confusion, YAHSHUA’S promise is certain and comforting: Let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God believe also in Me….I am going to prepare a place for you, come back to fetch you, so that where I am you will be also.(John  14:1-3). The beauty of God’s love through YAHSHUA’S words fills our hearts with peace. Under His presence we find comfort and refuge in times of storm. Only by being close to Him will we be the recipient of His protection.  There is no better place to be than close to Him, as we read in Psalm 91:1: those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High, shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty.

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Birth Pains

(John 16:21; Matthews 24)

I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, that you shall weep and grieve, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy, a woman, when she gives birth to a child, has grief because her time has come. But when she has delivered the child, she no longer remembers her pain, because she is so glad that a man has been born into the world (John 16:20-21).

YAHSHUA’S analogy is well fitted to the subject of end times. There are no pains worth going through that do not produce a result and relief. When Eve sinned, God punished her with pain in childbirth (Gen. 3:16) He said to the woman, I will greatly multiply your grief and your suffering in pregnancy and the pangs of childbearing; with spasms of distress you will bring forth children…. A woman’s labor pain is caused by contractions of the uterus’ muscles and by pressure on the cervix. It affects several parts of the body, for the entire body has to accommodate to the change that is happening for the sake of giving birth. Labor contractions are necessary for the body to push the baby out. They grow in intensity and constant as the baby nears the birth canal. But the woman is relieved after it is all over. She rejoices when she hears her baby crying, which is a sign of life. And as YAHSHUA said, she no longer remembers her pain because joy floods her soul with the thought of have given birth to a child. So the end time or the end of ages pains are compared to birth pain, because it gives birth to the fulfillment of prophecy of the Scriptures. YAHSHUA advised us to look up when we see those things are happening, because our redemption is on its way.

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The Persecuted Bride

        (A tribute)

Walking day and night

Hidden from human eyes

Eyes of hate and despair

Against God, against her faith

She lives holding unto

The strength of Him whose

Strength is all sufficient to

Carry on her journey heaven bound

History untold holds

The windows closed

For the world not to see

Her suffering beyond human mind

Buried and burned alive

Forsaken and raped 

For the cause

Many dare not to die!

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The Union

(Ruth)

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem of Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, his wife, and his two sons. But Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and so did her two sons.

In this apparent voided of happiness story there is a prophetic and beautiful end. We see in this story not only the picture of God’s love embedded in His plan for the Gentile nations, but also Ruth as a type of the gentile bride of Christ.  Call me not Naomi, she said, call me Mara [bitter]. While Naomi was drained in her unhappiness, God had a beautiful future for her life; one that would make her forget all her past losses. It all started when her family moved from Bethlehem duo to a famine. There, she lost her husband and her two sons. After she had lived in Moab ten years, she decided to go back home. Apparently, she had had enough However, both her daughters-in-law showed the desire to follow her to Bethlehem, but when she persistently refused the idea, one of them left her and went back home. Ruth however, firmly said, “urge me not to leave you or to turn back from following you; for where you go, and where you lodge will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God,” Naomi finally agreed to let Ruth go with her. In her words “Your people shall be my people,” Ruth showed great faith. There was more to her words than she realized. There was a prophetic meaning by being part of the nation of Israel she could never fathom. That would be a beautiful plan God had for her life. So, what compelled a young woman to give up her family, culture, and religion to follow her Mother-in-law, whose culture and religion were different from hers?  Perhaps Naomi, as her mother-in-law had a good influenced in her life, and as a result, a good relationship between them to compel Ruth to leave all behind to follow Naomi. But beyond the tangible, God was working His plan through Ruth’s life, to bring His Son into the world many years to come.

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