Welcome to all members of the bridal company and to the Word for Today.
Dr Mike has been taking us over these past few days through part of our journey towards maturity where we will be “without spot or blemish”. He reminded us that this will take us into the wilderness to be refined and tested since what our groom experiences we too must experience as our compatibility develops and our image reflects His more and more.
We have discovered that He desires intimacy with us and as He lavishes His love upon us in that secret place it ignites a hunger and desire for Him that nothing but complete ‘Oneness’ with Him will satisfy. We too hunger for greater and richer intimacy with Him.
Yet all the time we are journeying with Him His love covers us and His blood redeems and justifies and sanctifies us so the although we are ‘dark’, we are ‘lovely’ in His eyes. SOS 1 v 5
That desire for greater intimacy releases in us a revelation that it’s in His presence that His glory power and majesty are experienced. Its there that we feel complete and faith FULL. It intensifies our sense of assurance and of our authority in Him for indeed we understand then, that we are “seated in Heavenly places with Him” Eph 2 v 6 and all exploits are possible, all obstacles disappear and the mountain are removed into the sea.
However some people are content just to receive ‘One touch’ from the King and yet the Bride is offered much more. It is true that ‘One touch from the King changes everything’ as Godfrey Birtill’s song says (UK) but how about three nights of intimacy with the King? Wow! Would that satisfy your longing?
Esther reminds us that the Bride is offered nothing less AND that she can even request it. Esther did! For Her nothing less would satisfy.
You will remember how in the story Esther is so focused on saving Gods people that she lays down her own life willingly and risks everything. She says “Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa and fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, day or night. I and my female servants will also fast in the same way. After that, I will go to the king even if it is against the law and if I perish, I perish.” But before she made her request for the King to intervene and save the Jewish people in his Kingdom from Hamon’s wicked plot, she asked the King. Her lawful husband, to spend three nights with her alone. As each night they lavishly dined and then made love. By the end of the second night of intimacy she had positioned herself to “ask anything” and to receive the promise from him…..”I’ll give you up to half of my Kingdom” Esther 5 v 3 And that’s the point I want to make today.
Esther positioned herself through her intimacy with the King. Likewise the Bride of Christ must also position Herself and she does this by the degree of intimacy she has with Him.
In these days of instant this and instant that, when so called ‘success’ in ministry is reduced to following a motivational strategy or training course or we read books that come on the market cheapening the whole process of discipleship at any level, like ‘10 ways to be a successful Pastor’, we need to determine to stay in the ‘secret place’ and accept His invitation to “Arise and come my darling” even if it takes us into our Wilderness experience. THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS! Intimacy is developed slowly in the crucible of obedience, sacrifice, worship, praise and thanksgiving. It’s an “I must decrease and He must increase” experience. And our success is measured by the degree of our adoration of Him and intimacy with Him. From this position all anointing flows and assignments of spiritual significance are recorded in heaven….and are effective on earth.
Do you just want a touch from the King? That’s still all about YOU and YOUR need. Three nights or better still ….a lifetime of intimacy with Him really does change everything.
God bless
howard@call2come
