Section 1: The Call to Depart and Follow
There is a radical shift coming to the body of Christ. It will be like a sword that will separate out the real from the counterfeit. We are coming to a watershed moment in the history of the church, and we are being confronted with a profound and demanding question that must be answered before we can proceed any further. The Lord has put His church on the witness stand to be cross examined just like in a court of law and she must bear witness and give account for her behaviour. She has promised to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but now her motives are being questioned, her sincerity examined, and her heart exposed. This question which confronts her and demands an answer is the same as that asked of Rebekah in Gen 24:58 when Abraham’s chief servant came looking for a wife for Isaac, ‘Will you go with this man?’. The Holy Spirit has come to collect the Bride for Jesus, and He is saying ‘will you come away with me? Will you allow me to give you the wedding clothes? Will you allow me to take you somewhere you have never been before?’ Beloved, it is time to leave the house we have grown accustomed to, and begin a pilgrimage to the Bridegroom, it is the last journey for the church to take, the final transition she must make, and she does not know how, except the Spirit of God has come and He will lead her.
Of utmost importance is a clear roadmap rooted in the Word of God and revealed by the Holy Spirit upon which we might navigate the turbulent waters that lie ahead of us today. We cannot hold onto the security of what is familiar or the ways we have grown accustomed to, for our habits and church practices can become the very bonds which keep us imprisoned to an ideology that doesn’t line up to the Word of God or isn’t fit for purpose in the times we now find ourselves.
Whether we grew up with a Christian heritage or are new to the life of faith in Jesus Christ, we are inevitably influenced by what we hear from others, and what we see in the church today, and we often accept so easily what we see and hear without question. But what if the Spirit of God were leading His church into new and unchartered territory? One in which the practices, organisation, and infrastructures of the past, though they have brought us to where we are today, were ill equipped and unable to take us to our final destination?
Selah
Theme: Will You Go With This Man?
Key Scripture:
“So they called Rebekah and asked her, ‘Will you go with this man?’ ‘I will go,’ she said.” – Genesis 24:58
Quote: You can’t stay where you are and go with God.” – Henry Blackaby
Key Concepts:
- The Church is being asked a pivotal question.
- A separation is coming between those who will follow the Spirit and those who won’t.
- Rebekah’s response is a prophetic model for the end-time Bride.
- You cannot go with the servant and stay in your father’s house.
Reflection:
- What does it mean for me to leave the familiar and follow the Spirit’s leading?
- In what ways might I be resisting this call?
Section 2: The Transformation of the Church
Just like the caterpillar will never be able to fly or display the beauty that lies within, not without first dying to self: is there also a process of change that awaits the church today? For the caterpillar to become all that it was created to be there must be a radical metamorphosis, a dramatic transformation to take place, yet that transformation cannot happen until the old form of the caterpillar dies to give birth to the new form of the butterfly. One might argue that the church is the new creation, and I would have to agree, yes of course the church has been brought of out darkness and into the glorious light of God, redeemed and washed by the blood of her Bridegroom the Lord Jesus Christ. But is that the end of the process of change? Are we not to change from glory to glory? Are we not to present ourselves a living sacrifice on the altar of worship, that we might be transformed by the renewing of our minds? Does that renewal take place upon salvation only, or is it a daily responsibility to be sanctified?
If I am to be changed as a child of God, does that not also mean the church should be changed as the Bride of Jesus? For she is a person. Just like I am a person, so is the Bride. A corporate being that the Lord sees and relates to collectively as One. The church is the new creation, but that doesn’t mean she has become all she was created to be, there is a process of change that awaits her, a renewal of heart and mind to enable her to rise up into her created destiny as the Bride.
We will not find the blueprint of who we are in our denominational handbooks or vision statements. We must go much deeper than church tradition, style or personal preference, for ultimately it is not who we say we are, but what God has spoken over us and will bring forth into being. God has spoken who we are, and His Word will endure and produce its fruit. His Word carries prophetic significance, it is pregnant with power to transform us and bring us through the transformation process, and no wilderness, no tribulation, no pandemic or emerging World Order, is able to oppose what God has spoken.
Selah
Theme: Not Just a Revival – a Metamorphosis
Key Scriptures:
“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” – Isaiah 43:19
“Neither is new wine put into old wineskins.” – Matthew 9:17
Quotes:
“The greatest hindrance to the new move of God is the last move of God.” – Leonard Ravenhill
“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“We are not just called to go through change. We are called to become new creatures.” – Oswald Chambers
Key Concepts:
- God is doing something new, not simply reviving what was.
- There is a complete transformation taking place – like metamorphosis.
- The Church must cross the threshold of her full identity into the Bride.
Reflection:
- Am I expecting God to work in old patterns?
- Where might He be calling me to embrace the new?
Section 3: Confessing Our Identity
This is where we are today, the Holy Spirit is bringing to the church the Word of God that He has spoken over us, that we might know who we are. This is always the journey to understanding, that the Spirit of God reveals the very deep thoughts and intentions of the Father into our spirit that we might know God, and in knowing God we might know ourselves. This revelation of the Holy Spirit comes to us in the form of testimony. Listen to what Paul writes in Romans 8:16 [NKJV]
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God”
The words ‘bears witness’ used here in the original Greek is the word soom-mar-too-reh’-o and means a joint testimony, to bear witness or testify together. It means to be in agreement with each other. This is how it is we know we are the children of God, because there is alignment within our spirit and the Holy Spirit, that bear witness together. We agree with and confirm the witness of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. But this is only part of the process by which we enter into the truth of who we are. It is not enough to believe only. Here is what Paul writes again in Romans 10:9 (ESV)
“because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
You see, we must also confess that which we have come to believe, we must give audible expression of that which bears witness within.
This is how we are saved, to believe and to confess that belief. But there is so much more than this, for this same process of giving verbal confession to internalised belief is also true of our adoption as children of God. For yes we bear witness together between our spirit and the Holy Spirit that we are children of God, but also by the Spirit of Adoption we cry ‘Abba Father’. Here again, there is the internalised belief and the verbal expression.
Let’s look at what John writes in 1 John 3:2-3 NKJV – 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
John is saying that though we are now the children of God, there is so much more, for what we shall be, has not yet been revealed. Yes, now we are the children of God, but this is not all that we are or all that we shall be. Paul writes:
“For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face, now I know in part, but then I shall fully know, even as I am fully known” 1 Corinthians 13:12
Whilst there remain things which we will not know or understand fully until Jesus returns, yet it is true now that what no eye has seen or ear heard, what no heart of man has imagined of what God has prepared for those who love Him, those things are able to be revealed by the Spirit which searches even the very depths of God (1Cor 2:9-10) We are able to know now in part of what we shall be then. Indeed it is necessary for us to have this revelation of what we shall be so that we can align ourselves with God’s heart and intentions towards us now, for we must prepare now for what shall be then.
So the work of the Holy Spirit does not finish with us as children of God. He has one final assignment, one more glorious commission, there is one more testimony that He is bringing into the hearts of the children of God of what we shall be. It is what the Spirit is saying to the churches today, that we are the Bride.
Ultimately this truth has not come as an audible external voice but an inner voice that is deep with the heart of every child of God. If we search deep enough within, we will hear the witness of the Spirit of Betrothal declaring unto us that this is who we are, that we are His Bride. It is not an appeal to the head but to the heart. We cannot transition into our Bridal identity by theology alone, but this is about heart, about longing, a wrenching of emotion to break the hardness that has set in and to cause us to repent from every other perception and ambition that denies our admission into our corporate identity as His Bride.
Now if the right response to our adoption is to cry Abba Father, what should be the cry of the Bride? What words should she proclaim to express the witness she hears within her heart and therefore begin the transformation process? What I am saying is that it is not enough to believe in the Bride, but that belief must be given a voice, a cry, a call, if the belief is to become a reality.
Selah
Theme: Testifying With the Spirit
Key Scripture:
2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1 John 3:2-3 NKJV
Quotes:
“It is a great thing to be a child of God, but it is a greater thing to know it.” – Charles Spurgeon
“Until we have been broken and stripped of our own self-confidence, we are not ready to carry the glory of sonship or the responsibility of the Bride.” – T. Austin-Sparks
“God’s truth about us must become our truth about ourselves.” – Derek Prince
Key Concepts:
- Identity is both revealed and confessed.
- The Church must confess who she is – the Bride.
- Agreement with the Spirit’s testimony brings transformation.
Reflection:
- Have I aligned my words with what the Spirit says about me and the Church?
- What does it mean for the Church to confess her bridal identity?
Section 4: The Cry of the Bride
Becoming the Bride is not a passive doctrine which requires no response, and it goes beyond ecumenical unity and deeper than denominational partnership, it gives no regard to our titles or church affiliations, but it cuts to the heart, to the spiritual fabric and DNA of the church. The connection between one part of the Bride to another is not through pastoral consent, not through a leadership granted pathway, but to the essence of who we are as born-again children of God, who collectively stand in solidarity to make the Bridal Call.
What is this call? It is no less than for Jesus to Come and those that hear what the Spirit is saying must make this cry.
After all this is what Rev 22:17 tells us to do. Here is what John writes, in this now most profound and central scripture, which has become a key foundational truth upon which we must build going forward.
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’. In just one word, we are able to align ourselves to His heart, and to embrace our Bridal Identity. In just one word, we are able to get dressed and be beautified. In just one word we are able to abandon our strivings for a Kingdom Now philosophy, and in just one word we are able to position ourselves into the design and purpose of God for His church as we approach the final days that lie ahead of us.
You know the early church had this understanding and revelation of calling upon the Lord to come. They used the Aramaic word “Maranatha” as a way of greeting each other, which means both “Our Lord has come” and also “Our Lord Come”. It was a statement of truth and also a prayer, and they greeted each other with this declaration of assurance, and prayer of desire, especially in the persecution and severe trials that they faced at the time, this prayer kept their hopes alive on the promise that Jesus said one day He would return for them. This prayer was part of the DNA of the early church and gave them solidarity in an era of tribulation.
Whenever and wherever I have ministered around the world since I received this vision, I have shared this message, that we should cry Come, and my experience in gatherings in different nations has been truly wonderful as this cry, this longing of the heart of the Bride for her Bridegroom has been released and activated. When the Bride calls come, there is something deep in the heart of every believer that rises to the surface, a resonance deep within our spirit that lifts us up into the presence of the Lord. Gatherings of the Bride calling Come, have charged the atmosphere with an anointing that is unique and compelling. O how we need this anointing to be poured out upon the Bride today.
We are not yet fully equipped or clothed as we should be, but when we cry Come, we are awakening into our Bridal identity, we are aligning our hearts with His, we are agreeing with the Spirit who has always been saying come, and we are beginning to get dressed. When we cry Come, isn’t a symbol that we are ready, but that we want to get ready, and that we are getting ready, it is the greatest witness of all, and the prayer that our Bridegroom Jesus Christ longs to hear more than any other, because when Heaven hears the Bride calling come, they know that the time is drawing near for the Bridegroom to return, and complete the mystery hidden for ages, the Eternal Purpose of God, that we should be included in the glory of Oneness that exists in the Godhead, through the act of a marriage union with Jesus Christ who is both God and Man.
This is the vision I received from the Lord which gave birth to this beautiful movement of Call2Come.
You know when the church calls for the Holy Spirit to Come and not for Jesus how does that make our Bridegroom feel? What does it feel like when the one you died for and are betrothed to doesn’t call upon you to come, or is even aware of who she is? Is this what Jesus meant when he reproved the church in Ephesus of forsaking their first love? Two thousand years have passed, are we so entrenched in our ways, that we have forgotten what the early church knew so well? Can you imagine the joy of Jesus’ heart when He looks upon the earth and hears His Bride calling upon Him to Come, wow, how beautiful is that? This is what I saw in the founding vision of Call2Come, that Jesus will turn to the Father with joy in His eyes and say ‘Father, can you hear them calling? They are asking for me to come. Can I go?” and the Father will say, “Soon. Yes my Son, I hear their call, but this is what we will do, until that day, we will send the Holy Spirit one more time to help her to get dressed”.
I believe there is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that the church has yet to experience, and it will not come by asking for the Holy Spirit, but for the Lord Jesus Christ to Come. An anointing to empower her for the days ahead, and an anointing to help her get dressed. This is why Call2Come has embraced this message, and the commission to release and activate this Bridal Call upon the earth today. Let us unite our hearts as one as we set our hope on the glorious appearing of our Lord and Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, let us be numbered among the Bride, who together with John’s closing prayer of all scripture say, “Amen, Even So, Come Lord Jesus”. Maranatha
Selah
Theme: Come, Lord Jesus
Key Scriptures:
“The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’” – Revelation 22:17
“Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.” – Revelation 19:7
Quotes:
“Our longing for Christ’s return is the surest evidence that we are His.” – A.W. Tozer
“When we say ‘Come, Lord Jesus,’ it is not a cry of escape but of desire.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Key Concepts:
- The final cry of the Church is not “Help us,” but “Come.”
- The Bride is maturing into agreement with Heaven.
- This cry demonstrates readiness and longing for the return of Jesus.
Reflection:
- Is “Come, Lord Jesus” the cry of my heart?
- How can I live in a way that reflects readiness for His return?
