“Then Jesus told his disciples, “If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”
Matthew 16:24 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.16.24.
We are living in a time and a season when Daddy God is looking for His bride, the pure and spotless bride of Christ. When a bride is married to her bridegroom their is absolute commitment to be there for him till “death do us apart.” There is a simple purity of devotion to love him always. The bridegroom knows that His bride has His back and loves Him!
2 Corinthians 11-12 New International Version (NIV)
Paul and the False Apostles
“11 I hope you will put up with me in a little foolishness. Yes, please put up with me! 2 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.
3 But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4 For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
It seems these days that we as the body of Christ are married to more then one lover! We do not understand and can’t see the mixture that has swept into the body of Christ diluting His pure love. Many of us are more concerned with our image and fear the voice of man then the pure voice of our beloved who says,
Matthew 16:24 New International Version (NIV)
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.“
We are so bound with the desire, and lust to be seen by other people that we deny Him daily from a heart of unbelief. The Holy Spirit is wooing His bride in this season to come back to pure simple devotion.
My prayer this past month has been Lord deliver me from unbelief and bring me into this perfect love! God is love, so when we are filled with His love we will be able to deny ourselves. It says in the word that “in our flesh dwells no good thing.”
That is why we need to decide this day who we are going to serve. This is a daily choice to be filled with the Holy Spirit! We can not do it on our own strength as Romans 7:18 clearly states. We don’t have the ability in our human flesh to deny ourselves. It is only when we are filled with His Holy Spirit that the ability to deny our flesh is there. We need to come to this reality and truth! This is how we take up our cross and follow our Bridegrom Jesus daily, by being filled with His love, denying ourselves and following Christ! When we see our relationship to Christ as being married this will empower us to be jealous for our God just like the apostle Paul was jealous for the church (Bride of Christ) not to be decieved by other lovers in 2 Cor. 11:12.
We will want to protect and persevere no matter the cost to love our Bridegroom Christ Jesus. His perfect love which casts out ALL fear will empower us to be devoted lovers of Christ and sons of God even in suffering and persecution for Him!