Can You Imagine a Wedding on Earth as in Heaven?
Good Morning Friends,
When people start their own family and get married, they declare their love for the most important person in their lives. There has to be a leaving, a cleaving and a weaving. They have to sever their umbilical cord with their family and be joined together as one with another in a new family. Absolutely nothing on earth is to take precedence over the relationship with our mate. And so too Jesus came to earth leaving, cleaving and weaving so we might become one with another in a more universal sense. The invitation to His wedding has been offered. The invitation of marriage has been offered. And the invitation to be both the Body of Christ and the Bride Groom
together has my head spinning not unlike the day I got married. That is the mystery of it all friends, that is the challenge and the sacrifice if we are to be joined as one. Can You Imagine a Wedding on Earth as in Heaven?
Scripture: The Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man. . . . For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Genesis 2:22, 24 (NIV)
17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,
Ephesians 1:17-18 (NRSV)
and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 4:17 – 5:2 (NRSV)
2The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.
Matthew 22:2 (NRSV)
7Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; 8 to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure’—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. 9 And the angel said* to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’
Revelation 19:7- 9 (NRSV)
29He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled.
John 3:29 (NRSV)
Message: The analogy of the church as the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ has always baffled me a bit. It forces me to give up the reality of the life I have, rejecting the reality of this world and substituting a new one that is beyond my understanding. I understand that when I got married 35 plus years ago that I was to leave my parent’s home and started a new one. I understand that I had to leave my old ways behind and take up new priorities. I understand all that and it is reflected through my life in a wonderful marriage. But I am still confused when it comes to the institutional church, for what I see in this world, as church, is not the Body of Christ together and is certainly not in my wildest imagination suitable for marriage to Jesus Christ. Let us learn from our own marriages in preparation for a day more glorious than we can currently imagine…a day when we are joined together as one. Friends, faith is an act of Christian imagination. Imagination is crucial to the Christian life. It is not delusion or make believe. It too is concerned with facts. And the fact is that the risk is not that we have an overactive imagination but that we have one that is underdeveloped.
Pray that we stimulate our Christian imagination in a way that connects us to love. Pray we accept the invitation to the wedding feast. Pray as Jesus prayed that we be one. Pray that in living for Jesus we learn to love Him. Pray that we leave behind sin so we can follow Christ to a new home. Pray we are prepared through our experiences and relationships here now. Pray we are dressed in our wedding clothes of purity ready for the banquet. Pray we understand the grace, submission and love of Christian marriage. Pray we embody the gospel of Christ.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 