Hey All! Sitting here backstage before we go on in Charlotte, NC. Sorry it’s been forever since you’ve seen a blog from us. As you’ve probably guessed, we’ve all been crazy busy. One thing that has kept me particularly busy has been planning my wedding with my fiance! We are tying the knot on July 21 in Sweden following up our second year at a Christian Music Festival there called JesusRock.
Needless to say, all your prayers are greatly appreciated as we enter into this new season of our lives.
I don’t have anything incredibly profound to write today, but I just wanted to share with you a reminder that I’ve received in the midst of doing all this thinking about marriage.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” (EPH 5:25-27)
“Hallelujah!
The Master reigns,
our God, the Sovereign-Strong!
Let us celebrate, let us rejoice,
let us give him the glory!
The Marriage of the Lamb has come;
his Wife has made herself ready.
She was given a bridal gown
of bright and shining linen.
The linen is the righteousness of the saints.” (REV 19:6-8)
The Master reigns,
our God, the Sovereign-Strong!
Let us celebrate, let us rejoice,
let us give him the glory!
The Marriage of the Lamb has come;
his Wife has made herself ready.
She was given a bridal gown
of bright and shining linen.
The linen is the righteousness of the saints.” (REV 19:6-8)
I think there’s something huge that we need to take from how much God correlates the church as His bridge in the Bible. Look at the verses above, Jesus instructs us men to love our wives just as He loves the church. Now when I think about marriage, and what it arises from, knowing that it is simply the union of two souls when they can no longer see their lives as complete on their own. Not to get sappy or mushy, but I can so easily relate it to my wedding coming up, and it just makes perfect sense – me and my fiance know that we no longer want to live as two individuals, but we know that God has brought us together to be one, and that we will have the most satisfied and fulfilled life this way. I think Jesus views us the same. He is one day coming back for His bride, as the Bible tells us. To think, how much Jesus loves His people, that he relates it to marriage.
Now I know a lot of you out there maybe don’t have the best of marriage stories. Maybe yours is on the rocks as we speak. And we can also look at the church with all of its flaws that it has today, and criticize it until we the day we die. But lets just take a moment and think about what Jesus had for us by saying that we are His bride! I believe that He simply loves us so much, and wants to be with us for all eternity, which is the entire reason why He is returning for us to be “married” to Him. No more distance, no more pain. It will just be us and Him, in perfect communion forever. Sometimes it’s a little scary to think about all the “end times” talk, and read the books about Jesus coming back to rapture His church. But for us who know Him and are living for Him, it could possibly be the best thing that we could ever look forward to – to finally join with our creator, and the one true lover of our souls for eternity.
What I take from all of this is that it makes me look at the church with a little different perspective. Sure, there are so many things that I might do differently about church nowadays, from what I’ve experienced. And of course, there are a lot of people that don’t “practice what they preach”. But lets remember that any time we involve people in ANYTHING, we are all inherently flawed. The church that Christ intended for us to be, as his body, and as His bride that He loves more than anything, is as simple as being a good wife – to submit to Him, to love Him, to support Him, to stay faithful even through hard times, and to have an open, honest relationship with Him. So until Jesus comes back for us to tie the knot for good, I want my heart to simply see the church become like the bride that Christ wants us to be.