Thursday, July 20, 2006

Love First, Love Last



I love to hear impassioned prophets of our time. I love their anointed fervor and their messages assigned from Heaven, sometimes accessed through supernatural interaction with angelic beings. These men and women speak with authority, their souls aflame, and they pull us upward. They are modern John the Baptists preparing the way for imminent moves of God.

Without casting aspersions on these divine utterances, I always weigh one question: Where is Love in the message? I have seen God's power, and I have seen His Love, and neither one is complete without the other. For sure, no one will halt the will of God: Change is coming with might upon the earth; awesome revival is coming; justice and judgment are coming: God is God. But when I hear of spiritual war, of an urgency for Bridal preparation and a call to readiness - yes, those are necessary - my whole being cries another note in harmony with the prophets, "Love first and Love last!" A warrior Bride cannot arise in power without an equal and overwhelming measure of love.

Christ, our Alpha and Omega, personifies all surpassing love. He revealed a mystery to us 2000 years ago that we will not fully understand till eternity dawns - He is Supernatural Being infusing spiritual relationship, mirrored into our physical. Even those who see most clearly hardly grasp the magnitude of His revelation. His mystery was seeded, and then sealed for time's gradual, full release. His physical life introduced a Bridegroom's longing for His Bride, and we have been enamored of this relationship. But, His spiritual call to intimacy has continued to increase.

Nothing about God is static. Everything in God is perfectly planned toward His End, and throughout the ages He has released next steps toward eternity. The Supernatural Realm gives us a picture of what is available in the Spiritual Realm now - if we have eyes to see it. The time in history has arrived when the Father wants to open our eyes further, to realize that His continuous metaphors of marriage relationship and family throughout the Bible were intended to develop to their spiritual fullness, just as all His other gifts are intended to come to fruition by the end of the age. Attack against these covenants is blatantly obvious, but as the Spirit pours down His Love and favor in these days, upon all who hunger for His Presence, it is time for us to know that as much as Bridegroom, when He died, Jesus Christ also became the Spiritual Husband, passionate and jealous for His new Wife on her wedding day - and night! There is no greater force than First Love, and its reawakened abandon is being unleashed to bring the longing Bride to an appointment with her destiny.

Through speakers of our day, insight into coming power and change must therefore walk hand-in-hand with insight into this increasing level of intimacy that Jesus desires with His End-Times Spiritual Bride. Without ardent passion first burning within the Church, she will achieve little that lasts. The Father has released the revelation of Husband intimacy in the Spirit, and we must seek to understand it; spirit, mind, and body. Those who enter His secret place will hurry to rise, to become those very warriors called to the Harvest by anointed forerunners in the Spirit; prophets calling into the wilderness. Leaving all ties, these yearning hearts, ruined for the world, will be compelled by His love, in His strength and through His Spirit to live for the things His heart speaks of. God wills not to bring the End until all things are in place, and He has always chosen to work alongside His children; His Son's Bride. But then, nothing will be able to prevent the radiant Bride-Wife - truly joined as one with Christ, of noble heart and spirit - from going forth into the fields to glean. And she will find that her Kinsman-Redeemer is well able to cover and protect her vulnerable flesh.

So, onward, Beloved! On! Fall in-love, become love-sick for the Bridegroom-Husband, and thus prepare and be ready. Go forth no other way, for we can never be strong enough or wise enough... but live only in the strength of His Love! Then, His power will surely fall and we shall help to reap the Lord's Harvest as the prophets say, to work alongside the Heavenly Hosts and angelic beings... and then, the End shall come, and we shall know His Last Love!

Bo

The newbornBooks Team