Being the Bride of Christ as a Warrior and having the Lord’s Joy as our Strength

On one hand, the church as the bride of Christ is beautiful, holy, and glorious for God’s satisfaction; on the other hand, the church as the bride must be a warrior to defeat God’s enemy, and for this, we need to pray-read the Word of God to be equipped with the sword of the Spirit for the defeat of God’s enemy. Amen!

Thank the Lord for the divine revelation in His word showing us the wonderful, lovely, and glorious person of Jesus Christ, our beloved Bridegroom.

And thank and praise the Lord for appearing to us to capture us with His beauty.

Don’t you love the Lord Jesus? He not only came to accomplish redemption and save us; He came as the Bridegroom, and He died for us because He loves us and wants to make us His bride.

John the Baptist saw this and said, on one hand, that the Lord is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) and on the other hand, He is the Bridegroom coming for His bride.

The church as the bride of Christ and the kingdom of God was the joy set before Him; He paid the highest price to obtain the church, for the church will become His bride.

On our side, the joy set before us is the Lord Jesus as our lovely Bridegroom; we love Him, we want to enjoy Him and experience Him, we want to gain Him, and we want to be with Him.

He is the most lovely One. We pursue Him for our satisfaction, and we love Him more and more each day.

How can you not love the One who not only died for us but also came inside of us to be our life and life supply.

He is daily with us, even within us, and He guides us, speaks to us, and works both within us and outside of us to work out all things for good, for we love Him.

Even the things that seem to be unpleasant and not so positive, everything works out for good for us, for we love the Lord.

He reveals His love toward us in so many ways and through so many things.

Even after we fail, He still comes to us to show us His love, and He seeks to gain our love and affection.

How we love Him! We want to be with Him. We want to know Him.

Even when others leave us or betray us, He still is with us.

He knows our deepest thoughts, our every situation, and He understands our fears and our troubles.

He is compassionate toward us, and His compassions are new every morning.

We love the Lord Jesus, and we want to be with Him forever! So we give ourselves to Him to be prepared as His bride.

For the joy set before us, for our enjoyment of the Lord as our lovely Bridegroom for eternity, we want to be prepared to be His bride today.

We want to pay the price to enjoy Him, partake of His riches, and be prepared to be His bride.

Pray-read the Word to be the Bride of Christ as a Warrior Fighting to Defeat God’s Enemy

Eph. 5 shows us that the Lord Jesus is our Bridegroom and we are His bride, and He is preparing us to be His beautiful bride.

Eph. 6, however, shows that the church as the bride must also be a warrior to defeat God’s enemy.

Rev. 19 also shows the same thing.

On the positive side, we love the Lord, are washed in His word, are sanctified by Him, and are made beautiful before Him.

On the negative side, we are being trained and formed into an army to be the bridal army that defeats God’s enemy.

The armies in Rev. 19:14 are the called and chosen believers in 17:14; they are also the guests called to the marriage dinner of the Lamb and the bride (Rev. 19:7-9). Wow.

After the wedding feast, which usually lasts a day or so, the Lord with His overcomers – His newlywed bride – goes to war, and they defeat God’s enemy.

As the bride of Christ, we need to be beautiful, without any spot or wrinkle, and clothed in fine linen.

As a warrior, we need to be equipped to fight against God’s enemy.

Spiritual warfare is a matter of the Body; we do not fight the battle on our own but rather, we’re a corporate army fighting the battle for God’s interest on the earth (2 Tim. 2:4). Amen!

We want to be those who are not only beautified by God’s word that washes us but also prepared and trained to fight the battle with the Lord.

We want to be part of the armies that follow the Lord on white horses, dressed in fine linen, white and clean.

Our wedding garment – the fine linen, bright and clean (Rev. 19:8) – is our armour for fighting.

The victory has already been won, but we participate with Christ in the battle, dressed in our wedding garment.

The church as the bride of Christ will follow Him as His army to fight and destroy Antichrist and his army.

Today we need to be prepared to be such a warrior, a corporate warrior fighting to defeat God’s enemy.

How are we being prepared?

In Eph. 5 the word of God is for nourishment that leads to the beautifying of the bride, but in Eph. 6 the word is for killing that enables the church as the corporate warrior to engage in spiritual warfare (vv. 17-18).

When Christ returns, He will not come only as a Bridegroom to rapture His bride but also as a fighting General with His bride as His army to fight against the Antichrist at Armageddon (Rev. 19:11-21). Amen!

And we want to be prepared to be His warrior fighting against the enemy.

We take Christ as our objective righteousness and we live Christ as our subjective righteousness so that we may be clothed with the wedding garment, our fighting uniform.

We fight the battle in the Body, not on our own, and we take the word of God by means of all prayer and petition.

A very practical way we are being prepared and equipped is by pray-reading the word of God.

On one hand, the word of God nourishes us with God’s element and washes away any impurity, spot, and wrinkle, to make us the beautiful bride of Christ.

On the other hand, the word of God is the sword of the Spirit.

We receive the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the Word of God, by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit.

The word of God is the sword not directly but indirectly.

The sword is the Spirit directly, and the Spirit is the word of God.

When we pray-read the word of God, the enemy outside of us is slain and the adversary within us is killed.

We pray-read the word not only to deal with the enemy outside of us but even more to kill the enemy within us.

Many times we have things that bother us and press us.

Many times the enemy attacks us from within, for he is hiding behind our flesh, our self, and our natural man.

When we pray and read the word of God, the word becomes the sword dealing with the enemy and slaying him to release us from his usurpation and troubling.

The word of God becomes living and operative in us as we pray over it, and it even is like a two-edged sword to divide the soul from the spirit (Heb. 4:12). Amen!

When we are bothered by the enemy or we feel troubled within, we need to simply pray-read the word.

When we have problems among the saints or in the church life, we need to pray-read the word.

Pray-reading the word will cause us to be equipped for spiritual battle and will give us the victory over the enemy.

We overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony and by not loving our soul-life even unto death (Rev. 12:11).

Lord Jesus, we want to be equipped and prepared to be the bride of Christ as the corporate warrior fighting the battle against the enemy. Amen, Lord, we come to You in Your word. Speak to us. May Your word become living and operative in us. We take Your word by means of all prayer and petition so that the word may become the sword of the Spirit. Oh Lord, keep us praying over Your word. Save us from dealing with the enemy outside of us directly, and save us from trying to deal with the adversary within us face to face. We just want to pray and read Your word so that the sword of the Spirit would slay the enemy outside of us and defeat the adversary within us. Amen, Lord, we want to practice today to pray-read the word of God until it becomes the sword of the Spirit. We aspire to be Your overcomers, Lord, those who are trained and equipped in spiritual warfare, standing with You for the defeat of Your enemy on the earth!

The Joy of the Lord is our Strength, His Joy upholds us, and we can maintain our Joy

Neh. 8:10 says right at the end that the Joy of Jehovah is our strength.

This does not mean that if we enjoy the Lord, we have strength; rather, the joy of the Lord is our strength.

There is a certain joy when we enjoy the Lord, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.

According to Neh. 8:10, the joy of our Lord is our strength.

It’s not a matter of our having strength; rather, the joy of the Lord upholds us and is our strength (1 Thes. 5:16).

When we rejoice in the Lord and have the Lord’s joy, this joy is our strength.

Sadly, many times we are strong, but it is not the joy of the Lord that is our strength. We are so strong in ourselves.

A brother may be so gentle and kind, but when you get to know him, you realize that he has a strong disposition.

Similarly, a sister may be so nice, so gentle, and so eager to help or do things for you, but once you get to know her or coordinate with her, she is so strong in her disposition. Oh, Lord.

Our strength is natural, and our natural strength is exposed when things happen, and we react to things. We almost explode.

We react to things that we do not like. If someone touches us, we simply react. Oh, Lord.

How much we need the joy of the Lord to become our strength in reality.

We need the Lord to deal with our natural strength on every level.

As we get older, we may be so strong in our disposition, but then the Lord shows us again and again how powerless we are without Him.

The Lord allows things to happen to us in order to break us.

He loves us so much, but we’re so strong in ourselves; we’re like a wild mare pulling the chariots of Pharaoh. Oh, Lord.

The Lord wants His strength to be in us, but His strength cannot coexist with our strength.

So He comes to be our enjoyment, and when we enjoy the Lord and have His joy, we have His strength.

May we keep enjoying the Lord until the joy of the Lord becomes our strength.

Others may touch us and speak to us, and all they sense is how strong we are.

As the Lord deals with us and touches us, as He has a way to break our natural strength, His joy becomes our strength.

As the cross is applied to our being, the joy of the Lord becomes our strength.

The Lord’s joy has nothing to do with our circumstances; His joy is inward, and no matter what our circumstances are, the Lord’s joy is our strength.

There is joy in knowing and doing God’s will. We can rejoice in doing the will of God.

However, we should not try to copy the Lord and manufacture some sort of a joy; we simply need to receive the joy of the Lord.

We need to know the will of God, which is Christ, His cross, and the church.

When we enjoy Christ and partake of His riches, when we allow the cross to operate in us, and when we live one with Christ for the church, we are filled with the joy of the Lord.

When we do our will, we have a joy that is temporary, and eventually, this joy fades.

But when we choose not just permissive will but His perfect will, His eternal will, realizing that we’re here for the will of God concerning Christ and the church, we are filled with joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.

We can have something of the Lord imparted into us, and the joy of the Lord can become our joy; His joy will be our strength.

A very good pattern in this respect was brother Watchman Nee.

At the end of his life, even in the midst of suffering, he testified, “I maintain my joy.”

Even in prison, in the midst of intense persecution for his faith, when he was denied the basic needs and necessities of human life, and when he was denied a fair trial, brother Nee still maintained his joy.

Even though he was denied to attend his wife’s funeral and was not released from prison until the end of his life, he still maintained his joy.

This shows that he practiced the word of the apostle Paul in Phil. 4:4, Rejoice in the Lord always.

Through the Lord’s mercy and grace, may we all be able to maintain our joy by the joy of the Lord as our strength.

May we all enjoy the Lord and have His joy become our joy so that we may have Him as our strength.

Lord Jesus, we come to You to enjoy You and take You as our joy. You are the joy set before us. We love You, Lord, and we love to enjoy You. May Your joy become our joy. We open to You. Oh Lord, You know how strong we are in ourselves. You know how much we do our own will and manufacture our own natural joy. You know what we are, who we are, and what we need. We open to You. Have Your way to deal with our inner being. Have Your way to break our outer man so that Your life within us may overflow. We do not want to copy You but simply receive the joy of the Lord. Amen, Lord, may we have something of You imparted into us. May we have the joy of the Lord so that this joy becomes our strength. Hallelujah, we can rejoice in the Lord always! Praise the Lord, no matter the circumstances, we can rejoice in doing God’s will, for the Lord is with us, even within us, and His joy can be our joy and our strength!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 4340-4242, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Enjoyment of Christ and our Growth in Life unto Maturity (2023 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 6, entitled, The Joy Set before Christ and the Joy Set before Us.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Spiritual warfare being a corporate matter, a portion from, Basic Principles for the Practice of the Church Life, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee.
  – The church as a corporate warrior in Ephesians, article by Ron Kangas in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Quenching the Flaming Darts of the Enemy, article via, Shepherding Words.
  – Why Read the Bible? To Slay God’s Adversary! More via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The church as the warrior for defeating God’s enemy, a portion from, General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A – Part 2: Romans through Philemon, Chapter 9, by Witness Lee.
  – 7 Wonderful Aspects of the Church in Ephesians, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Fine Linen for the Bride and the Army, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – In the new creation Christ preparing a bride for Himself, a portion from, Life-Study of Daniel, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Fight the battle in the Body, / Never fight it on your own; / With the Body to the Head joined, / Fight the battle on the throne. / Fight the battle in the Body! / By the virtue of the Head; / Standing firmly with the Body, / Into vict’ry you’ll be led. (Hymns #885 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – O let us rejoice in the Lord evermore, / When sickness upon us is stealing, / No cordial like gladness our strength can restore, / For joy is the fountain of healing. (Hymns #717 stanza 3)
  – The churches are the Body / Of Christ on earth today. / They are His testimony, / That He may have a way. / They are the golden lampstands / In cities far and wide. / They are His fighting army, / And His beloved Bride. (Hymns #1265 stanza 1)