Waiting: What is the Bridegroom Doing????
In Your Time by Marantha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJeNUlNY7Iw
Bridegroom Return?
So, just what is happening during all this waiting for the Bridegroom’s return? Jesus is not “twiddling His holy thumbs,” as my mom would say. He is making preparations for the Bride’s coming and for the celebration of His marriage. He is concerned for His Bride! There is much communication happening and much work has been done in His Father’s house.
Building a Mansion
The King James translation calls the place the Bridegroom is building a mansion. (John 14:2) In this Southern girl’s mind, I see the house of Tara in Gone with the Wind. But the word in Greek is mone, translated, it really means “abide, stay, dwell, abode.” The NIV translates this as “room.” The Bridegroom is adding a room to His Father’s house for He and His Bride to share. Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms, I go to prepare a place for you. This room must be better than the home the Bride grew up in, making it a “mansion.”
Welcome Home
This room must be built in the Father’s house because, in Jewish Galilean culture, the Bride moves to the home of the Bridegroom who continues to live with His Father! It is a private place for the Bride and Bridegroom, but it is part of the main house where the Bridegroom lived and worked before the marriage. This room must meet the Father’s approval and must give honor to His home, honor to the Bride, and be a place of safety, warmth, and welcome for the Bride of His Son.
Revelation 21
This makes the picture in Revelation make so much more sense. It is a stunning, magnificent, and elaborate, four-square structure coming down out of heaven where all the children of God come and go. It is created with only the most beautiful materials so it literally will “take her breath away.” Revelation 21 It is a “mansion” fit for the King’s Son and His Bride.
One Day is like a thousand years
So far, in God’s economy of time, the Bridegroom has been working on this beautiful home for His bride for two days! (A thousand years is a day, and a day is a thousand years. II Peter 3:8) The average length of time was one to two years for a Bride to wait.
Perfect Timing
Jesus knows what His Bride wants! She wants to not be separated from her Bridegroom! He is not being slow. There is a purpose to His timing. Everything must be perfect and God is not slow as some think! (II Peter 3:9, Psalm 86:15, Exodus 34:6, Psalm 121:4) God’s timepiece is always on time!
Interceding for us
What else is Jesus doing? Romans 8:24-30 gives us the answer. He is interceding for us before His Father, conforming us into His image, justifying us, and preparing us to share His glory and His reign! He is building in us patience! We are learning to be kind, gentle, trustworthy, meek, loving, to have the knowledge, faith, fortitude, temperance, to grow in understanding, learn the fear (awe) of the LORD, wisdom, healing, prophecy, faithfulness, and self-control: To have all the qualities of Jesus so we can rule and reign with Him. (II Timothy 2:12, 15)
Go Get Your Bride
I once heard it said at the funeral of a very dear friend, “Death comes to the body when the Spirit within is no longer fit to reside within this fragile, broken, and sinful flesh. It is then God calls us Home!” Jesus paid the Mohar, He signed the ketubah, He gave His gifts of the Spirit, to be a teacher in His absence, and He has gone to prepare a new home, and His intercession for us is done according to the perfect will of His Father. Then, God the Father will say, “Go get Your Bride!” Our last breath on earth is our first breath in our eternal home. No more separation. No more sin and death.
Only the Father Knows the Hour
The Bridegroom is seated at the right hand of the Father. (Colossians 3:1, I Kings 22:6, Mark 14:62, Matthew 26:64, Hebrews 1:3, 10:2, 12:2) His work is done! He only awaits His Father’s command, “Son, go get Your Bride!” To make it a complete surprise to all, it will be in the middle of the night. Many will be asleep and not watching and waiting at all. Remember, only the Father knows the day and the hour. (Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32, Acts 1:7)
Paradise Restored
This place is the redemption of Eden! Paradise restored. A place to live in harmony with God and man eternally: to be forever connected to God. Never more to be separated, estranged, distant, or fearful. This is the dream that burns within the heart of every human being. It is how God the Father hardwired us. It is what we long for, seek, and fill with a thousand different substitutes trying to experience what our souls know is what we were created to experience: Peace, Love, Joy, Harmony, Purpose, Communion, Eternity!
Are you watching, waiting, and wanting His return? The Spirit and the Bride say,
Come quickly Lord Jesus! Come! (Revelation 22:17, 20)
Even So Come by Kristiann Stanfill
Father,
How rich are your mercies toward us! (Lamentations 3:22-23) Thank you for this beautiful plan set in motion before the foundation of the world for the redemption of man. (I Peter 1:20) You are a loving Father and you have chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise and the weak to confound the mighty. Father, we are dust and live only because You have given us the breath of life. (I Corinthians 1:27, Genesis 3:19, Genesis 2:7) Father, I honor You and thank you this day for in Him alone do we live and move and have our being. (Act 17:28)
Send Your Son quickly, I pray! Lord, I desire to be ready.