Seeing God as the Bridegroom

 I used to have a major problem with the ideology of seeing Christ as my Bridegroom, because of the fact I am a male and seeing a man as a marriage partner is foreign to me. I was viewing the reality with a sense of perverse eyes instead of looking at it with spiritual eyes. The world has distorted the way that I was to view Christ as my spiritual mate through perverted lifestyles of homosexuality. I could see Him as a Father, Friend, and Helper but this whole Bridegroom idea through me aloof. Job 36:26 says, "Behold God is great, and we do not know Him." When you break down the word know in the Word it means to know sexually or intimately. Since we have such negative connotation with the word intimate we pervert it to think that it is a sexual relationship with God. The scripture is stating that God is great, and we do not know Him in a place of intimacy. When I read this there was a shift in my spirit that gave me a different perspective on the Bride groom reality. In relationships on the earth we begin to allow ourselves to get to expose ourselves intimately to others the closer we get to them. We let them know how we are feeling, our thoughts, and there begins to develop a trust between the two. You in a sense surrender yourself and tear down the walls of protection to allow that person to get in deeper parts of your heart. Viewing Christ as the Bridegroom is surrendering yourself to allow Him to have access to the deeper parts of your spirit, mind, and body. He exposed Himself on the cross with His heart in full surrender, because He loved us that much. He knew He could not have His perfect Bride unless He were to surrender and expose His heart and life first. I began to wonder how could I not allow myself to be in full surrender and exposure to someone that loved me so much that He died for me, and bore His inner self for all to see before I even existed. No person is ever going to love me as much as He does, or burn with a passion for me as much as He does. When I gained that reality the Word began to open up to me in a whole different perspective. Almost everything I read became coherent with the fact that we are to be Brides of Christ.

First off I need to explain how much Christ truly desires to be with His Bride. Please anywhere you see a she think of yourself as the Bride of Christ, and anytime it speak of him or a man think of it as Christ the Bridegroom.

Genesis 2:18

18 And the Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."

In this scripture I gained a metaphor that Adam was Jesus and Eve was us as the body of Christ. God knew that even before man fell that it was not good that Jesus was alone, and that He needed a companion. God made us to be a lover of Christ, and a helper that is comparable to Him.  We are to conform ourselves in our spirit to be just as Christ is. Once we allow this perfect union to take ahold of our spirit we began to shine and act as Christ does. I believe that John the Baptist was comparable to Christ even before Christ died for our sins. He was the first man to talk about the bridegroom reality, and was named by Jesus ,”The greatest man ever born of a woman”.

John 17:24   

24 "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

This is Jesus talking and is asking God to take us (The Bride) with Jesus wherever He goes. Jesus wants us to be in the same glory that was bestowed upon Him by His Father. He desires to give us so much love, and to abound in us so much power.

Matthew 19:4-6

4 "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,'

5 and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?

6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

This is such a great picture of the bridegroom reality. God created Jesus which is considered the groom and a woman whom is considered the bride. Jesus will leave heaven where the Father is and come down to earth to be joined with His wife (us), and we shall be of one flesh. We also as the bride of Christ need to leave our “baby” Christian mentalities behind and be joined solely with Christ. Once we decide to lay it all down and throw caution to the wind to violently seek Him a marriage will take place. We are then created as one flesh with Him as we walk out our lives here on earth. We as brides do not have to deal with this world alone, but can be joined by the One that sits at the right hand of His throne. We are to have a heavenly marriage with Jesus as one flesh. Jesus died and shed His blood for us, because we were worth living for, and all He wants in return is a loving marriage relationship with Him Selah (Meditate on that). Lord I pray that you open the eyes of my understanding to be able to become one flesh with You, so that I am fully prepared to be Your perfect bride.

Song of Solomon 3:1-4

3 By night on my bed I sought the one I love; I sought him, but I did not find him.

2 "I will rise now," I said, "And go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek the one I love." I sought him, but I did not find him.

3 The watchmen who go about the city found me; I said, "Have you seen the one I love?"

4 Scarcely had I passed by them, When I found the one I love. I held him and would not let him go, Until I had brought him to the house of my mother, And into the chamber of her who conceived me.

At night she sought for Him in the secret place. She was upset that she could not find Him when she searched. We are to search for the Bridegroom as she does her lover.  At times we seek for things at night, and this usually gets us in the most trouble. I know that in the night time was when I used to get caught up the most in sin, and it is still the time that I have a tendency to be susceptible to sin. I believe this happens, because during the nighttime my guard is down, and my focus seems to wander a bit more. Since she (Us as the Bride of Christ) could not find her love she went into the world to find satisfaction from her lack of intimacy with Him. She is going to look in all the wrong places for the intimacy that she longs for with flesh instead of with God. God put that search of intimacy within our hearts, so that we will search for Him and not man. I for a time went to go search out the world to find something that would satisfy the urges that were empty, because of my lack of intimacy with God. If we are not careful and do not stay in a constant place of intimacy with God, we are liable to go search for to fill the void elsewhere. It is not as though God is not there wanting to fill you with His love, it is the fact that we are nullifying that pursuit by ignoring His passion for us.

Watchmen-Circumspect- potential consequences

Found me-Took hold of

The consequences of her search took hold of her. Since she had wandered away from the bed room (place of intimacy) she faced consequences of being alone. I realized that staying in the secret place, the intimate place is the answer to the feeling of being lonely. He is always there for us if we search for Him, and His burning passion for us is more than we can even being to comprehend. He wants to do everything with us in unity. After she had gone a little further in the world she found the Bridegroom. She then proceeded to take Him back into the place of intimacy. After she had wandered enough straying from the intimate place with God she found the Bridegroom waiting for her, and took Him straight to the secret place. She brought Him back to the place where she was first conceived in love for Him. I believe that she brought Him back to the place where she was a newborn Christian in a love place with Him. She brought Him to a new fresh love place like when she met Him the first time. If we ever begin to falter a bit we need to take Him back to the place of First love.

Romans 8:35

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Nothing will keep us from the love of God, because no matter what we do He will find us. In the last blog I talked about how the prodigal son left, but had the tugging on his heart to come back home. We can never leave His presence for long. No trial should separate us from the place of intimacy with Him. Think about everything that Paul went through as he lived for Christ. He was jailed most of his Christian walk. John the Baptist lived in the desert fasting all his life, and in the end got beheaded for it. Stephan in Acts 7 was getting stoned and still looked up to the heavens asking God “Do not charge them with this sin.” Stephan was pleading for mercy for the very people that were killing him. Christ as well was persecuted and later brutally murdered, because of His love for us and the Father. We get all ticked off and walk away from God because somebody offended us, or the money did not come fast enough.  We need to get out of our petty ways, and understand every problem we have in our life is solved when we get I perfect unity with our Bridegroom.

          We as a Bride’s of Christ are living a lifestyle of harlotry. We are cheating on our Bridegroom by wasting our time on good things of this world, and not great and power things with God. We watch television to keep us entertained while the whole time God is waiting for us to be entertained with Him. His beauty and mysterious things should be enough to entertain us for a lifetime. When you are in love you do not need to do anything else to be entertained except to be in the person’s presence, and to commune with them.

Hosea 1:2

 2 When the Lord began to speak by Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea: "Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry And children of harlotry, For the land has committed great harlotry By departing from the Lord."

We have lost our view of who we are in Christ which has led us into selling ourselves to things of this world. I am just as guilty as anybody else getting caught in the whirlwind of life. We have so much going on around us in this hour to keep our senses distracted it is easy to lose track of God. He needs to be in our every thought, and there with us when we make every decision. One thing I have learned about relationships through my parents is that they make decisions together, and that is what we are supposed to do in our marriage with Christ.

Hosea 2:16-17

16 "And it shall be, in that day," Says the Lord, "That you will call Me 'My Husband,'  And no longer call Me 'My Master,'

If you do not believe that we are to be married to Christ look at verse 16. It says we will call Him My Husband and no longer My Master. We are to have a relationship with God as a marriage not as a slave ownership. He does not want us to feel like slaves, but as Wives to Him that love Him so much you will do anything for Him.

Hosea 2:19-20

19 "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy;

20 I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, And you shall know the Lord.

To betroth means to marry.  God is saying that He is going to marry us to Him forever, He is going to marry us in righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy, in faithfulness, and that we will KNOW the Lord. Remember that to know is to have sexual relations or intimacy with. He made a declaration that not only is He going to marry us forever but with that comes basically the fruit of the spirit (Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control). I love at the end when He states that we will KNOW Him. I love that He is stating that He will have an intimate relationship with His Bride, and it is time that we have the longing to have an intimate relationship with Him as well.

          Let us go back to our first love like it talks about in Hosea 2:7. Living astray from God is not worth the misery. We as society look for the counterpart that completes us when all the while He is here waiting for us. God put that longing for relationship in us, so that we can have that place of intimacy with Him. Now that I have gained the knowledge of Christ as my Bridegroom nothing can separate me from the understanding of His pursuit and love He has for me. He is a jealous God and longs to spend time with me. I can only boast of Him, because I am nothing without Him. I pray that this post and the rabbit trail explanations shed some light of a Bridegroom reality. The only true way to gain revelation of this is to search it out yourself, and to ask God to reveal Himself to you in a reality of a Bridegroom. Begin to look at scripture through the eyes of a Bride. Look at all the amazing gifts he has bought for us, and all the things He has done for us out of a place of love for His most precious Bride. I love you all and be blessed.