QB8 Will You Go With This Man?

The Bridal message the Holy Spirit is bringing to the church today is a challenge of radical reform that confronts and threatens to change much of what we have understood about the church. Our perspectives, preferences, personalities and programming must all give way to a vastly superior paradigm. The bridal paradigm isn’t asking to be squeezed onto our already crowded bookshelves along with other doctrines to be referenced occasionally, but it is the very bookshelf upon which everything else must either find a place to fit or be discarded altogether. The bridal paradigm demands a reformation at the core of who we are, it is our identity which is under review here. It is not a refreshing or even another revival that is required. Over the years the church has had many and yet still remains asking for more, though we thank the Lord for those that we’ve had, what is needed here goes deeper than a refreshing or revival, what is needed is an awakening to our highest identity. There is something deeply hidden away in every child of God that resonates with the Bridal message, because the Spirit of God placed the Bridal DNA within us all when we were born again. It merely needs to be awakened like a planted seed waiting to be watered, or like the sleeping beauty, the Bride is being romanced in the wilderness with kisses from the Son. Now here is the challenge that confronts the church and its leadership today. We could say that just as Laban was looking after his sister Rebekah, so the leaders of the church today have a custodian role for the Bride which is a temporary assignment to nurture and provide for her until the time comes for her to leave. Now after Laban had originally accepted the bridal message and agreed to release Rebekah, by the time the morning had come, he had changed his mind and wanted to slow down the whole affair. The account describes how the servant became angry and warned “Hinder me not since the Lord has prospered my journey”. Once the Holy Spirit brings the bridal message we must not stand in His way, the Lord is jealous for His Bride. The word jealous means fiercely protective of one’s rights or possessions, and this is how the Lord is over His Bride. So Laban quickly retreats and suggests let’s ask the girl, by calling her a girl, he is emphasising her age, suggesting she is not ready. O how mistaken we are when we think we know better than the Lord concerning His Bride. So here is the question that we must all answer, it is the question that was put to Rebekah that day, “Will you go with this man?” Will you forsake the comfortability of what you know and even those that are around you into the unknown journey of the Bride. Will you come to embrace the message that demands an answer and align yourself into your bridal identity. It’s time for the Bride to arise, it’s time to receive the extra oil. Let us respond like Rebekah did who answered simply but decisively “I will go”.