we are becoming the beautiful bride of Christ for Him to be satisfied!

The more we know the direction of the Lord’s move today the more we will see that there’s a connection between salvation in life and the preparation of the Bride.

The direction of the Lord’s move is to build up the Body for the preparation of the Bride that He may bring in His kingdom. The desire deep in God’s heart is to have a counterpart, a perfected beautiful corporate person who would match Him!

For this He became a man and went through the process to become the Spirit, and now for this He is working tirelessly to perfect the believers and beautify them that they may be His Bride! We are daily saved in His life that we may be His Bride!

Becoming the bride for His satisfaction

As we go on with the Lord, we become more aware of what we are and how many problems we have – there are vexing problems, weaknesses, spots, wrinkles, defects, failures, and many such things. As we are exposed to see them, we desire to be saved from them, aspiring to experience the full organic salvation.

The goal of this is that the Lord would have His Bride without defect, spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. He wants to have His beloved beautiful bride and tell her in love, My beloved, there’s no blemish in you!

Hallelujah! All our scars, defects, deep dispositional problems, peculiarities, etc will be washed way, so that our Beloved Bridegroom might have a beautiful Bride! For this we need to tell the Lord,

Lord, by Yourself as the Sevenfold Intensified Spirit, make me an overcomer – not just to be saved from the outer darkness or to be rewarded by You, but for You to be Satisfied! Lord, may You be satisfied! Grow in us, mature us, perfect us, transform us, beautify us, and make us Your beautiful Bride that You may be satisfied!

This is a costly way – the path of becoming an overcomer will not spare you in any way. The Lord knows this, and He as the Absolute One and as the Burnt Offering wants to live in us and be our absoluteness.

He doesn’t expect us to do impossible things, but He desires that He would live in us. We need to let Christ live in us and then we will experience the church-loving Christ who gave Himself up for the church!

Being made ready by growing to maturity

The whole universe is eagerly expecting the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19) – everyone and everything is looking forward to seeing the many believers in Christ growing in life to maturity that they may be the bride of Christ who bring in the next age!

We need to grow in life and mature into perfection in the divine life – let us be brought onto maturity (Heb. 6:1)! It is such a pleasant sight to see the saints grow in life. Lord, cause us to grow in life unto maturity!

May our growth in life never stop and never come to a standstill, but may we continue to grow!

Lord, please give me the experiences I need to continue the growth in life unto maturity. Only You can cause the growth. I don’t want to be stuck. Grow in me unto maturity for You to get a prepared Bride for Your satisfaction!

Being built up into the corporate bride of Christ

The bride of Christ is a corporate entity. To be built up means we are corporate in our being and Christ is expressed through our soul. It means that our individualism and independence is terminated, we are saved from self-likeness by the law of life, and we are part of the corporate expression of the Triune God.

Eventually, all the believers will end up being a part of the New Jerusalem, the corporate expression of the Triune God. In our self “we want to be special”, but the Lord wants to make us corporate Triune-God-Expressing-Persons.

When we are such people, we have real rest in our being, and we match Him in every possible way as His counterpart.

The genuine beauty of the Bride is from the Husband

When the bride is mentioned (Rev. 21:2), we automatically think of her beauty. The wedding feast the Lord invites us to come to is focused NOT on the beauty of the bride, but on the Bridegroom Himself. The bride is adorned FOR her husband.

Actually, the genuine beauty of the bride is Christ as the lovely One wrought into the bride! Christ as the Lovely One, the real Beauty, is working Himself into us daily to beautify us and make us His beautiful bride. It is good to tell the Lord,

Lord, work Yourself into us for the church! Lord, beautify us for the Bride!

It is such a beauty to see a human being living Christ and expressing Christ! Any believer who expresses the Christ living in him is such a lovely person. It is so beautiful to see Christ shining out through a human being.

Our beauty as the bride is not of ourselves but it is a reflection of what Christ is. Our beauty comes from the Christ wrought into us and living in us, shining out from within us.

What Christ appreciates in us as beauty is the expression of Himself in us. Nothing less than this will meet His standard or win His appreciation.

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from, Life-study of Ephesians (msgs. 89, 95), and brother Ron’s sharing in this message, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Genuine Oneness of the Body, the Proper One Accord in the Church, and the Direction of the Lord’s Move Today, week 6.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Not alone, O Lord, do I adore Thee, / But with all the saints as Thy dear Bride; / Quickly come, our love is waiting for Thee; / Jesus Lord, Thou wilt be satisfied.
  # O Hallelujah! / ‘Tis this we long for, / And Thou too wilt be satisfied.
  # Time is short, oh, brothers, hear it, / Christ is longing for His Bride. / We can hasten His returning / Simply by the growth in life.
• Picture source: generic picture of a bride and her bridegroom. Note: no physical or human picture can express the beauty of the bride as a reflection of the beauty of the Bridegroom, Christ, so this is a VERY imperfect representation…