What is the Point?: Discovering Life's Deeper Meaning and Purpose (22 page)

BOOK: What is the Point?: Discovering Life's Deeper Meaning and Purpose

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F
RIENDS OF THE
B
RIDEGROOM

Those who awaken the dawn of the millennium and the return of Jesus will be in profound agreement with His heart, because they will be the ones who have lived before the Audience of One, in a locked gaze with Jesus. They are the ones who have lived the Sermon on the Mount wholeheartedly, seeking to love Him with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They are the ones who have lived lives of communion, sacrifice, and love for others. They have the fire of God poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit.

This is the beginning of the “take over” of Jesus and His kingdom. He is first taking over the hearts of men. Then He will take over the physical realm and then all of the created order, right down to the dirt and the trees. Each will be tried in the face of pressure where our love is being refined. The fire of His love consumes everything that gets in the way.

In the same way that He refines us as individuals, He will do this with the globe. The fire of God is primarily internal today, but it will be global and even external in the future. We must yield to His supernatural, internal fire today and agree with His heart to remove all that hinders this love in order to fulfill our primary life purpose, which is love itself. We want to be one with that flame and not be found resisting Him or in conflict with Him. We want to love what He loves and hate what He hates. We want a deep fiery affection for Him that agrees so definitely with His heart that we are in the center of the storm, held close to Him, in the midst of shaking.

This fire of love that is so demanding in our personal lives is equally demanding in the earth. He wants us
all
, and He wants the created order too. He wants the kingdom to spread from the hearts of men to the earth. The fire of God that is being poured into our hearts today will enable us to not only remain faithful to the end, through the fire of tribulation, but it will also enable us to bring a multitude into the fellowship of His heart before and during the days of shaking. We will be burning and shining lamps in the darkest hour of human history if we remain in the fire of His love through agreeing with His heart. Our agreement with Him comes by warring against our sin and remaining in the vine by continuous conversation with Him through His Word. Even in our weakness we know His heart of mercy and run to Him again and again. We feel His deep desire for us and stand in His counsel by marking and perceiving His Word (Jer. 23:18). John the Baptist also stood and listened (John 3:29), and when He heard the voice of the Bridegroom, his joy was full. He spoke of judgment, and he had joy that was full because he heard the voice of love and desire.

Oh! There is no greater way to live. We are not of this world, but we are missionaries and ambassadors. We are friends of the Bridegroom beckoning all to come to the wedding. We have seen the end of the story, and we have heard His voice with personal, living understanding. Now we lift up our voices in the middle of the darkest night and cry, “Come! Come to the wedding.” (See Matthew 22:4– 5.) In the midnight hour we are calling people to come behold the Bridegroom (Matt. 25:6). We are persuading men to love Him. We give our lives to bring people to Him and cause them to see Him and love Him as He loves them.

The end-time church will be victorious in love: “Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song of Sol. 8:5). The bride is leaning upon Jesus as her Beloved, empowered by love and gratitude. The church ends natural history with a leaning and loving heart as she is victorious in love. The Spirit prophetically speaks as He declares the bride’s victory in the end times as she walks in love in the face of testing, temptations, and difficulties (Rev. 15:2). The church will be filled with glory and without compromise (Eph. 5:27), and Jesus’s wife will be made ready (Rev. 19:7–8). Truly this is the most profound and grand story we have ever heard, and it will not fail. It is God’s story, and every detail will come to pass.

C
ONCLUSION

Jesus knows the end of the story. He can see where we are going a billion years from now. When all we see in our personal lives is weak love, He sees real love. In the same way that He predicts where the seed of sin would lead, He also sees the seed of righteousness and sees the stunning tree that will blossom and take deep root for those who stay with it. He sees the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10).

Many times throughout my life I have heard amazing, inspiring messages of wholeheartedness and abandonment. I have been to many altar calls to sign up to be one of these people of understanding and have felt the stirrings of being a messenger to prepare the way of Jesus’s return. I have walked out of many meetings or read many books and sermons that inspire profound vision that has shaped me. But the thing that shocked me was how easily I strayed— sometimes even the next day. I was shocked when I first began to see this, but He was not shocked.

One of the most beautiful things about this whole story is that He chose weak and broken people to partner with, and He will not bring about this grand purpose without us. It is amazing. Yet I often felt like I could never attain, that I would never be strong enough to be a forerunner or devoted enough for such a grand picture, but over and over through the years He continually says to me, “I love you. You love Me. I know you do. Take it one day at a time. Just keep fighting. Stay in the race.”

I want to give Him what He wants because it is my primary life purpose to satisfy His desire and to be His and partner with Him for eternity. I want to be His prize. At the end of my life I want to say, “I did it! I didn’t give up! I didn’t give in. I didn’t draw back in shame, though I failed a thousand times. I didn’t give up in doubt, though I could not see You. I didn’t quit when I was tired, but I pressed toward the prize. I did it! Here is what You wanted from me. Here is what You died for. Here is what You will fight for. Here is what I was created to be. Here is my heart! I am Yours! All Yours! In the dark night of faith I didn’t draw back. I love You, Jesus! I love You, Jesus!”

Much of my walk with the Lord is a reach to love, but I want my heart to truly be moved by Him and toward Him where I not only reach for affection, but I also feel it. I want to take the reins of my mind and the reins of my soul, bringing them into agreement with Him, knowing that He calls it love every time I choose. When He sees me there struggling to sit in silence, trying to pray, living in secret, choosing righteousness when my lust pulls me in a different direction or when my pride wants to defend myself, but I restrain because I know He is watching, He says, “That’s love.”

I keep stoking the flame of love by every little choice I make, and one day I will have a bonfire. He sees the struggle. He sees the fight. He sees that I failed many times but got back and ran to Him instead of away from Him. He says, “That’s love.”

All of the shaking He is doing is about producing love in the hearts of all mankind. It comes through shaking and through understanding and seeing Him. I want to look Him in the eye on that day and present my heart to Him knowing it is the primary thing He was after the whole time. My entire life purpose is wrapped up in the day I stand before Him. I am measured by the size of my heart, and so is all of humanity. This whole thing is about love. Divine love, eternal, immortal, stronger than death. Love from eternity past. It is the fire in His eyes that will bring this love forth in me and bring it forth in the earth. He will do whatever it takes to fill the earth with the fire of His love, and nothing will get in His way, nothing will stop this fire, and nothing will hinder His purpose.

We are not aimless or without meaning. We are not spinning around on the earth in the midst of all the galaxies like a tiny aimless rock in the midst of a billion. We are not hopeless or without vision. We are caught up in His story. This whole thing is about Him. Every minute counts. Every deed done and every thought we think counts, because He is watching and we move Him deeply. Our lives are profoundly significant, and His love will bring us forth into the fullness of purpose and meaning. He will not relent until He has it all. He will not relent, and this is where our confidence lies. It is in the fire in His eyes.

To the end!

NOTES

C
HAPTER
T
WO
W
HAT
I
S
G
OD
L
OOKING
F
OR
?

1
. Viktor Frankl,
Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning
(New York: Basic Books, 2000).

C
HAPTER
F
IVE
T
HE
I
NSIDE
-O
UT
, U
PSIDE
-D
OWN
K
INGDOM

1
. Mike Bickle, “Loving Jesus: The First Commandment Restored to First Place,”
http://mikebickle.org/resources/resource/3334
(accessed August 7, 2012).

2
. Corrie Ten Boom with Elizabeth and John Sherrill,
The
Hiding Place
(Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen, 2006), 216. Viewed at Google Books.

3
.
The Hiding Place
, directed by James F. Collier (1975, Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox, 2006), DVD, as quoted in Phyllis Kirchberg,
The Profound Mystery: Marriage—the First Church
(New York: Vantage Press, 2008), 115. Viewed at Google Books.

4
. Ibid.

C
HAPTER
S
IX
F
IRE OF
L
OVE
: S
USTAINED BY
G
OD